• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2024

• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Aerospace Engineering, ‘25

• Host Institution: SpaceX

• Mentor: Phil Larson

• Brookie Mentor: Zoe Brand

Ariette is a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign majoring in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. Her passion for space exploration emerged at a very young age from her love of stargazing on clear nights, her gravitation towards STEM classes in school, and her obsession with the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

Within her engineering career, Ariette dreams of furthering our reach into our universe and making humanity multiplanetary. She strongly believes a key component in the future of the aerospace industry is focusing on the reusability of spacecraft. She is absolutely thrilled to spend this coming summer as an intern for Recovery Operations at SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA. For years, Ariette recalls being absolutely stunned by watching videos of SpaceX rocket boosters returning perfectly upright at the landing sites, and is extraordinarily grateful to join the team that helps make this marvel happen.

Ariette is determined to promote sustainability and innovation at the forefront of all her endeavors. Outside of reusability in space transportation, she has gained an interest in electric mobility to further explore the applications of sustainability in engineering. Through the Contextual Engineering Research Group at UIUC, Ariette has contributed to research on the accessibility and equity of electric vehicle adoption in diverse communities. She has been internationally recognized for her dedication to sustainability, with one of her proudest achievements being the recipient of the 2023 International Sharon D. Banks Memorial Scholarship from the Women’s Transportation Seminar.

Outside of her studies, Ariette has been deeply involved in the UIUC engineering community since her first year. As the current president of Theta Tau, the co-ed professional engineering fraternity on campus, Ariette proudly dedicates her time everyday towards upholding brotherhood, philanthropy, and professionalism within this prestigious organization. She consistently is reminded of the importance of collaboration and empathy when engaging with this bright group of young engineers, and will carry these values far past graduation.

In her free time, Ariette loves nothing more than to spend quality time with the amazing friends she’s made at UIUC. She is a lover of being outdoors no matter the season, tending to her collection of houseplants, and constantly crocheting gifts. As a jazz enthusiast, Ariette loves playing saxophone and piano in jam sessions with her musically-talented buddies.

Through the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Ariette strives to be remembered not just for technical accomplishments, but for contributing to the betterment of the female STEM journey. Like the many women who have inspired Ariette, she hopes to be a beacon of motivation for the next generation of girls in aerospace.