Meet Kia Leep

We were lucky to catch up with Kia Leep recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kia, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

This might sound cliche, but I thrive on adversity. For as long as I can remember, anytime I’ve been told I can’t do something, it’s driven me to want to achieve it even more. This is both my weakness and my superpower! My driving desire to defy has certainly gotten me into trouble in the past, (see: the time I dyed my mouth blue for a week when I ate some garnish on a date after the date teased me about avoiding the garnish) but it’s also consistently pushed me outside my comfort zone and facilitated growth in more ways than I could count.

Part of the motivation for why I originally decided to become an aerospace engineer was because of how few women work in the field. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And when I struggled with my first couple of courses (I had undiagnosed ADHD and depression, which certainly didn’t help me manage my full course-load of engineering classes,) it only made me more determined to do better. When one of my professors told me I should quit engineering after failing a test, it lit such a defiant fire in me that I buried myself in the coursework and ended up acing the final.

By the time I hit graduate school, I knew I wanted to work for NASA. In fact, I wanted to be an astronaut. But my world was rocked when, one semester away from graduating, I was diagnosed with cancer. That same week – literally three days later – I had an interview to work on NASA’s Artemis program. I completed the interview in a haze, and I missed my finals for the ensuing surgery. My dream of becoming an astronaut was dead: people with cancer can’t pass NASA’s rigorous physical. But five days after my surgery, I got the call: the Artemis program wanted to hire me as a test engineer.

My doctors told me I should take that last semester off to recover and worry about graduating the following year. But I had a job offer on the Artemis program, contingent upon my graduation. There was no way I was going to quit now. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I hit the books.

While recovering over winter break, I reached out to my professors, and they agreed to let me take my finals at the end of January. I had three classes left to complete during my final semester in order to graduate. I also had to finish writing and present my thesis, all while working as a student teacher for a first year physics lab.

In January, I passed all of my previous semester’s finals. Over spring break, I underwent radiation treatment. In March, I finished my thesis. In May, I presented it to a panel of professors and human spaceflight experts (including an astronaut). I passed with flying colors, crushed my finals, and got my masters degree. Two weeks later, I started on the Artemis program.

I suppose I’m the embodiment of “shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” (Yeah, I know I’m a walking cliche.) I lost my chance at the moon, and through no fault of my own. But I never would have gotten where I am today without the drive that has propelled me this far.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Working in human spaceflight wasn’t a dream I had since I was a kid; in fact, I struggled to pick just one topic to focus on. I loved reading, writing, history, math, science – anything where I stood to learn more about the world brought me excitement and stimulation. In the end, focusing on helping humanity to become a space-faring civilization hit all of those points; what better way to live out the sci-fi fantasies of my favorite books than to help make their futures a reality?

By now, I’ve touched about every aspect of spaceflight you can imagine. I interned on the SLS rocket program. I was a test engineer on the Orion space capsule. I helped create simulations for the (sadly cancelled) Europa Lander. I was the systems engineer for an inflatable commercial space station program called Orbital Reef.

That said, I never let go of my love of the arts. I’ve been writing stories since I was old enough to write, and that hasn’t changed as I’ve grown older. Now I’m able to incorporate my background and expertise into the stories I tell, and I’ve published several books as a result. My most recent book, Friendly Fyre, leans on both my aerospace background, and my personal exploration of gender identity.

Rather than being on opposite ends of some theoretical spectrum, I believe science and the arts go hand-in-hand. Both are ways of exploring the world in which we live, and both can foster a deeper appreciation of our universe. Music is math, and it is expression. Astrophysics is a way to learn about our origins, and a way to dream up our potential futures. Science and art are manifestations of the human spirit.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Rather than three qualities, I’d like to focus on one: In my opinion, curiosity is the most important quality anyone can have.

Curiosity facilitates learning. It fosters empathy. It is the base ingredient of creativity. But exercising curiosity necessitates humility; if you think you have all the answers, you won’t go seeking out other perspectives. If you are able to step back and ask questions, to try to see things from different perspectives, you will not only approach the world with more kindness, but further your own personal growth.

In fact, I’d argue that growth cannot occur without curiosity. At its core, curiosity is a desire to learn more, to become better, and to understand the unknown.

As a great mustached man once said, “Be curious, not judgmental.”

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

No differently than I am now.

It’s a strange thing to be faced with your mortality in your 20’s. You go through every stage of grief in rapid succession. Despair. Anger. “Why me? Why did I have to draw the short straw?” I even felt jealous of my peers for a time. They didn’t know how lucky they were; I would have traded a lot for the biggest concern in my life to be the grade on my final exam.

But holding onto that resentment is self-poisoning. It’s not wrong to feel that way – it’s the most normal reaction in the world – but at the end of the day, we’re all on this earth for a limited time. We’re just working on different timescales. So then the question becomes: What do I do with the time I have left?

Right now, I’m five years cancer free. That doesn’t mean it won’t come back someday, but I live my life as if it won’t. I believe the healthiest balance is to plan FOR worst scenarios, but not to plan ON them. I have a retirement savings account I’m contributing to. I have a rainy-day fund. But as opposed to the years before my diagnosis, when I was a strict penny-pincher, these days I also allow myself to indulge in day-to-day pleasures. I set a monthly budget for small treats, so I can impulsively buy that lemon cupcake in the bakery window. I’ll continue my weekly visits to the coffeeshop down the road to read and write in that old cozy armchair in the corner of the room. I’ll get a new toy for my dog, even though he already has too many, just for the joy it will bring both of us as we chase each other around the backyard.

Plan for the future, and live for today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kialeep.com
• Other: Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/kialeep.bsky.social