ISABELLE PELOSO
Matthew Isakowitz Fellow, Class of 2024
University of California, Berkeley, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration
Host Company: SpaceX
Isabelle “Elle” Peloso is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley. She is pursuing a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration through the Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology (M.E.T.) honors program. She has had a life-long interest in space, sparked at an early age by her step-father’s Mars rover work at the NASA Ames Research Center and JPL. Hoping she might follow in his footsteps, Elle pushed herself to excel in math and science, and in the 7th grade, she was awarded a scholarship to Tech Trek, an all-girls STEM summer camp hosted at the University of California, Irvine. During her freshman year of high school, Isabelle enrolled in astronomy courses taught by Dr. Mitchell Haeri at Saddleback College. During her junior year, she became the first student chosen to lead the college observatory’s community outreach program and to perform independent undergraduate research in adaptive optics.
Isabelle’s diverse engineering experiences have led her to seek a career in bioastronautics. During her first summer internship in 2021, she worked at Rivian on the Body Closures Team, and this work solidified her interest in mechanical engineering. In 2022, the Brooke Owens Fellowship paired Elle with SpaceX and its Starlink Space Lasers Mechanisms Team. This internship exposed her to high-volume manufacturing and she learned how to thrive under real deadlines. In her 2023 summer internship at Relativity, Isabelle worked on the Combustion Devices Team, where she helped create engine components that optimized making fire. Her experience at Relativity strengthened her interest in aerospace and helped her discover that she enjoys the fast pace and project ownership that comes with start-ups. Elle is interested in working on engineering problems centered around human health in space, namely human-factor groups that support spacesuit and spacecraft design. This summer, as a Matthew Isakowitz Fellow, she will be interning at SpaceX with the Space Operations Engineering Team to support their crewed spaceflight missions.
Outside of her academic interests, Isabelle is passionate about inspiring girls to pursue careers in STEM. She is the Alumni Outreach Director of California Tech Trek and is responsible for building a new alumni program from the ground up. In her free time, Elle also enjoys managing, arranging, singing, and performing internationally for the Cal Jazz Choir. Her other favorite activities include playing intramural soccer, international travel, and cooking.