Sabrina Nicacio

Sabrina Nicacio, from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, is pursuing a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford School of Engineering. She graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in mechanical and aerospace engineering and a minor in robotics and intelligent systems. Driven by a passion for space exploration, she has contributed to major advances across research and industry: designing mechanical systems for Starship launch operations at SpaceX, developing a heat treatment for additively manufactured turbine blades at MIT, and creating autonomous navigation algorithms for NASA’s CADRE lunar rovers at Stanford and NASA JPL. At Princeton, she developed a fuel-optimal reconfiguration framework for satellite swarms using orbital dynamics and convex optimization, and implemented 2.5D SLAM algorithms for robots equipped with magnetic wheels. Deeply committed to democratizing access to aerospace, she has led initiatives to broaden research opportunities and build lasting pathways to space careers for underrepresented students.