Our Executive Mentors

KATE TICE

Kate Tice is an Emmy Award-winning rocket launch broadcast host and Senior Manager of Quality Systems Engineering at SpaceX. In this role, she is responsible for SpaceX’s AS9100 certification, quality management system, and leads a team of engineers focused on ensuring rocket and spacecraft reliability. Prior to her current position, she was a Senior Program Reliability Engineer where she partnered with SpaceX’s US Government customers, including NASA and the Space Force, to assure mission safety and hardware reliability for astronaut and satellite launches.  As a result of her work in this role, NASA awarded Tice with the Silver Achievement Medal for exemplary leadership and commitment to the Commercial Crew Program’s Safety & Mission Assurance team and the safety and quality of spaceflight hardware for NASA Crew missions.

In addition to her engineering roles, Tice has hosted many notable SpaceX mission broadcasts over the years, including the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket, the first successful landing of a 1st Stage rocket at sea, and the 2019 Emmy Award-winning NASA SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission. Most recently, she hosted the first and second integrated flight tests of Starship. In these webcasts, she strives to teach and explain rocket science in a way that’s fun and relatable for all viewers, regardless of their age or educational background.

Tice graduated from The Pennsylvania State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering and minors in Engineering Leadership Development and Spanish.  In 2021, Penn State named Tice as one of the PSU College of Engineering’s 40 Under 40, and in 2022, Tice received the Graduate of the Last Decade Award from the Penn State Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering department.

While her eyes are usually on the stars, Tice enjoys keeping her boots on the ground as an avid outdoor enthusiast and Land Cruiser FJ80 owner. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jesse, and their dog Space Mountain Ranger Esq I (aka Ranger).