3/10/2025 Debra Levey Larson
Written by Debra Levey Larson
This year’s list of those selected to be Knights of St. Patrick includes only 10 names, one of which is Ariette Kaberlein. She is a senior in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Students selected for this unique honor demonstrate outstanding leadership, excellence in character, and make an exceptional contribution to the college and its students.
One of Kaberlein’s impressive accomplishments is serving as the president of Kappa Theta Tau—a highly selective professional co-ed fraternity for engineers dedicated to professional development, philanthropy, and social initiatives. In her role as president, she presided over a 22-member executive board and nearly 100 active members. While being closely involved in all facets of the organization, a few of her main goals were to foster openness and inclusivity, implement direct member feedback, and increase collaboration with other student organizations. Her leadership focused on helping members grow into well-rounded engineers who not only excel in their fields but also give back to the Illinois engineering community.
During her junior year, she earned a fellowship with a summer internship at SpaceX. As part of the SpaceX West Coast Recovery team, she contributed to design projects and hands-on engineering efforts aboard the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship. Passionate about advancing reusable and sustainable space launch technologies, she described working on a team responsible for booster recovery as a dream come true. The highlight of her summer was spending four days on an offshore mission to support the recovery of a Falcon 9 booster and fairings.
The previous summer, Kaberlein worked as an electrification engineering intern at Brunswick I-Jet Lab in the University of Illinois’ Research Park. In this role, she served as the mechanical team lead for an intern-wide project, spearheading the design and construction of an electric pontoon boat to test autonomous boat-docking software.
She also completed NASA’s L’SPACE Mission Concept Academy during her sophomore year, where she collaborated with a team of students from across the country to develop a professional-grade mission proposal to send an orbiter to a near-Earth object. As the team’s chief scientist, she played a key role in the technical design while gaining valuable experience in mission planning and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Also at Illinois, Kaberlein worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Contextual Engineering Research Group. In this position, she analyzed electric vehicle fast-charging infrastructure to help optimize EV adoption and accessibility. She also researched specific underserved cities to better understand the factors that affect EV adoption.
After graduation, she plans to work in the space launch vehicle or spacecraft industry, with a focus on making it more accessible and sustainable.