Machu Picchu rainbow

Isabel Burgess

Class of 2020
Isabel holding Dartmouth pennant

About 

Hey there! I'm Isabel, a '20 from the sunny town of Tucson, Arizona. I spend most of my time at the Dartmouth Engineering, but you can also spot me hanging out with plants and my twin brother in the greenhouse, snapping photos of picturesque Hanover, or drinking iced coffee even during the winter (Arizona habits die hard). I'm an undergraduate advisor for the North Park housing community as well as a member of the marching band, Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineers, and Club Swim.

Academic Program 

Engineering, Studio Art, Spanish

Favorite Thing Right Now 

My new houseplant: Gerald the cactus

Hometown 

Tucson, Arizona

Pronouns 

she/her/hers

You are here

Isabel's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: 3D Design & Digital Fabrication

      This special topics class taught Adobe Illustrator and the CAD software Rhino 3D. We laser cut, 3D-printed, and used the CNC router to cut huge sheets of plywood to make pavilion structures. My group made an 11 foot tall pineapple structure that now sits in House Center A .

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Expository Writing: The View from the Balcony: Learning How You Learn

      This is the one class that Professor Merton teaches each year and it is well worth it just for her. The texts are transformative and lend themselves to self reflection and better learning in all aspects of life. The expertly planned assignments helped me become a much better writer.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Introduction to Scientific Computing

      ENGS 20 with Professor Taylor is taught in a "flipped classroom" style where one watches mini-lectures before class and works on coding projects during class. Students are assumed to have no coding experience coming into this class and are taught the basics of C and Matlab languages.

    • SummerTucson, AZ

      I went home for the summer, enjoyed the sun, swam nearly everyday, and worked for Cocina Verify, a startup company that verifies food safety in restaurants in Latin America.

    • FallCusco, Peru

      Favorite Class: Introduction to Hispanic Studies III: 20th - 21st Centuries

      The Peru LSA+ for Spanish is one of the defining moments of my Dartmouth career. We pet llamas, hiked in extraordinarily beautiful places, visited Machu Picchu, and read amazing Peruvian literature, my favorite of which is Rosa Cuchillo by Oscar Colchado Lucio.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Drawn to Resist: The Latin American Comics with Liniers

      My favorite class ever! Taught by the renowned Argentine comic artist Liniers, we looked at Latin American comics through time and were exposed to history and many variations of the Spanish language.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Sustainable Design

      ENGS 44 teaches the basics of sustainable building design. Throughout the course we designed tiny homes for varying applications and went on several field trips around the Upper Valley, including a visit to a straw-bale insulated home in Vermont.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Architecture I

      My class designed a range of installations for the Dartmouth Organic Farm, including small buildings, amphitheaters, and comprehensive pathway systems. We went on a site visit to the Organic Farm and had weekly lessons for the software Rhino 3D.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Introduction to Environmental Engineering

      ENGS 37 is a chill engineering class that covers diverse technologies for water and air treatment, risk assessment, design for the environment, life-cycle assessment of a product, and other related topics. We also had one week of field trips during class!

    • WinterTucson, AZ

      I spent my winter off-term enjoying the Arizona weather at home and working remotely for a FinTech startup based in New York. It was nice to have some time to reflect on my Dartmouth experience thus far and refocus for the future.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Structural Analysis

      I took ENGS 71 with Vicki May, one of my favorite Thayer professors. The course covers modeling and approximation of structural systems, for example calculating the type, dimension, and layout of beams to properly support a roof with certain applied loads.

    • SummerBeverly, MA

      This summer I worked for Build Health International, a non-profit that designs, builds, and equips healthcare infrastructure in low-resource settings. I worked on initial design for a hospital in Rwanda and researched germicidal UV lamps at hospitals in Haiti.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Sacred Architecture of Asia

      In ARTH 38.01 we learned about Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic architecture as well as Asian funerary architecture. Professor Hockley taught us the basics of religious thought and introduced us to many fabulous structures.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Modern Architecture

      Modern Architecture, taught by Professor Heck, starts in the mid-18th century with Neoclassicism and ends with the expansion of the 'International Style' post WWII.

    • SpringTucson, AZ

      I am taking Glaciology, Reproductive Ethics, and Machos & Malinches (Gender and Sexual Identities in Latin/x American Literature and Culture) remotely this spring term.