Heading into her fourth year of mechanical engineering, Aarabhi Krishnakumar thought her internships were behind her — she'd already completed two through U of T's PEY co-op. Instead she took an extra year and moved to Oxford, England, in August 2024, her first trip outside North America, to join the BWT Alpine Formula One Team as a build and test intern.
Her earlier placements had taken her from operations strategy on private-jet manufacturing at Bombardier Aerospace to helping design Canada's naval ships at Lockheed Martin, and a summer streamlining mail sorting as a process engineering intern at Canada Post.
I’d like to be on the floor and working with parts.Aarabhi Krishnakumar
In Oxford, she attended the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the team's initial track test, and was one of five Alpine staff at an F1 75th-anniversary event hosted by then U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Back on campus, she was elected to the Engineering Society, helped organize the Iron Ring Ceremony, served as events director for the Indigenous reconciliation portfolio at Engineers Without Borders, and raced with U of T's Formula Racing team — while also completing a part-time internship with the Canadian Space Agency in her final year.
After travelling with her mother to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, Krishnakumar started as a process engineer at Tesla Toronto in late May. Her new boss, she says, noticed her application partly because he's a Formula One fan.
Reported from From aerospace to F1 racing: U of T grad leans into internships to land engineering job, by Samantha Younan (U of T Alumni News, August 25, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/aerospace-f1-racing-u-t-grad-internships-land-engineering-job