Kaitlin Liles joined NASA as a cooperative education student in 2003 and transitioned to full-time in 2006 when she graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Liles served as the SAGE III on ISS Lead Thermal Engineer during the payload development and testing phases, up until the launch in February 2017. In that role, she was responsible for ensuring that the SAGE III instrument, once it’s attached to the International Space Station, would remain within a safe temperature range throughout the duration of the mission. At the start of the commissioning phase, Kaitlin became the project’s Chief Engineer. In this role she provides support for anomaly resolution and data trending evaluations, reviews critical change requests, and provides a link between the SAGE III operations and science teams and the LaRC Engineering Directorate.
Outside of work Kaitlin enjoys photography, traveling, reading, and spending time at the beach. She and her husband Ryan have been married since 2007 and have a son and a daughter (both born during the development of SAGE III!).
