It’s obvious walking into the office of Dan Burkey ’23 MA that he’s a Lego nerd, but does he consider himself one? “Oh yeah. I get the catalog and everything.” Overflow creations came to work when the College of Engineering’s associate dean for undergraduate education and diversity started running out of display surfaces at home. “I grew up in the ’80s, and I had a ton of Legos as a kid. My mom kept them all, and when I had a child of my own, I started to buy them for him as well,” Burkey says. “Legos are synonymous, in a way, with engineering. A lot of kids that grew up to be engineers were probably into Legos.”

Give Me Space While he loves co-­branded Legos for beloved IP — “The Simpsons” and “Lord of the Rings” are favorites — the bulk of his collection is NASA- or space-related. The Saturn V rocket behind Burkey’s monitor was the first he brought to campus in 2017; the Earth and moon in orbit and Perseverance Mars Rover are 2024 additions.

Precious Gifts The “Tiny Plants” set was a thank-you from a student for writing recommendation letters. At home, Burkey’s 16-year-old son displays the 4,000-piece “Star Wars” Death Star the two built together after Christmas 2015.

The Coolest While not the largest or most expensive, Burkey says the “neatest idea” he’s seen is the Lego ship in a bottle on display in his Engineering II space (not pictured). “It’s a little Lego ship in a bunch of Lego water with the ‘glass’ bottle built around it, sitting on a little stand. It’s unique.”