Triniti DiSilvestro ’24

From a young age, Triniti DiSilvestro ‘24 always loved nature and animals, and that love grew into a passion for learning about the natural world around her. As an Integrative Engineering major she chose the environment and energy focus to follow her passion and learn more about how to care for the environment and preserve it for future generations.  

While at Lafayette Triniti has participated in several research opportunities. As a first-year student, she worked with a senior for her thesis project, helping to construct a residential air conditioning unit that utilized thermal energy storage to shift electricity demands on the grid during peak hours. Triniti later worked with Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Kney to develop science content for an educational game that teaches children about how human actions impact the environment, and what people can do to lessen their impact. She also conducted summer research with Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Amy Van Asselt on an extension of the project she participated in her first year, making improvements and modifications to the air conditioning unit’s thermal energy storage design. 

During a spring semester in Madrid, Spain, Triniti interned with POWEN, a company that specializes in solar photovoltaic panel installations on homes and businesses. This experience introduced her to the details behind solar installations and the inner workings of marketing and designing solar panel arrays for customers. 

Beginning fall 2022 she is taking on a new role as an Eco-Rep with the Office of Sustainability. In this role she will advocate for sustainability and lead related initiatives on campus.

This semester she is also taking ES 303 – Environment and Energy Systems Engineering. This class is particularly relevant to her because the main project involves developing solutions to actual problems that exist on Lafayette’s campus. The class will work with LaFarm to improve its irrigation system and ability to provide its own water. The course will also work on opportunities to help Lafayette reach their goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 whether via an industrial-scale solar farm, finding other methods of saving/producing energy, or carbon sequestration. Triniti is especially excited about this class because it enables her to apply her engineering skills to solve real problems. 

Triniti is a student leader with the Lafayette DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship. During her free time, she enjoys longboarding around campus, being outside, hiking, board games, and spending time with her family. She and her friends recently discovered the joys of climbing trees around campus, taking “tree hugging” to a whole new level.