Ariel Ekblaw

Dr. Ariel Ekblaw is a Technology and Geopolitics and Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy (DETS) Fellow at the Belfer Center. She is the founding CEO of Aurelia Institute and GP for Aurelia Foundry Fund, a hybrid space architecture research institute and venture incubation studio; she also founded the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, a team of 50+ students, faculty, and staff building and flying advanced technology for space exploration. 

Ariel graduated with a B.S. in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy from Yale University and designed a novel space architecture habitat for her MIT PhD in autonomously self-assembling space structures. Her research work and the labs she leads build towards future habitats and space stations in orbit around the Earth, Moon, and Mars. 

Ariel is the author/editor of Into the Anthropocosmos: A Whole Space Catalog from the MIT Space Exploration Initiative (MIT Press 2021) and serves on the NASA Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) Executive Committee. Ariel’s work has been featured in WIRED, Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, CNN, NPR, numerous academic papers, and more.