Major: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Originally from Binghamton, NY
Currently lives in Skaneateles, NY
While at Clarkson, Jerabeck was a member of the Society of Women Engineers (President in 1974-1975, the chapter’s second year), the Clarkson Integrator (campus newspaper) staff, Clarkson Union Board (the campus’s programming board), Phalanx (Clarkson’s leadership honor society), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Eta Kappa Nu (the honor society of IEEE), and Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society). The first woman to attend the Nuclear Power Engineering School at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, NY, Jerabeck worked as an engineer, in a variety of capacities, for General Electric, including as a project manager and training supervisor for the southern half of the United States. For a brief period around the time of her daughter’s birth, she was a systems analyst for RJR Nabisco. Jerabeck then became a computer consultant and an adjunct professor at several community colleges. While her daughter was very young, she decided to become a stay-at-home Mom. Since then, she has been very involved in her community, for example as a member of the Skaneateles (NY) School Board, president of the Skaneateles Parent Teacher Committee at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, member of the Austin Park Development Committee, and member of the Board of Directors of the Skaneateles Rotary Club. Jerabeck is also an involved Clarkson alumna and is a winner of the Woodstock Award, given to alumni who have demonstrated career accomplishment, service to Clarkson, and service to their community. She is married to Robert Jerabeck, class of 1979, and they have two children, both of whom are Clarkson alumni: Allison, class of 2008, and Allen, class of 2012.
In this interview clip, Jerabeck explains that she was the first woman to go to the Nuclear Power Engineering School at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. She discusses the challenges she faced there, including being kept out of a power plant because of fears that she would be a “distraction.” Jerabeck’s interview included her classmates Martha Callahan Annoni and Monique Charbonneau Staples.