United States
Whether her canvas is traditional, an engineer's mind, a comedic sketch, or a pie, Karen Freidt inspires us with her child-like curiosity and innovative approaches. She has many diverse successes that span the gamut from award-winning art to NASA programs. Karen studied and collaborated with the University of VA, Longwood University, NYC School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design, among others. In 2020, she started baking pies. They went viral, were in international media and NYC’s Spring Fashion Week. She used the success to raise money for the Foodbank and lift people’s spirits. Her pie sculptures can currently be seen on a Virginia Billboard sponsored by the Norfolk Arts. A sketch that she wrote will be performed in the 2022 "Panties In a Twist" Show at the Norva in Norfolk, Va. She is currently working on a Ukrainian Refugee fundraiser, applying to residencies, writing more comedic sketches, finishing a pie book, performing improv and plans to take stand-up courses next.
Recent 2010-2011 - TEDxYouth NASA, Florida Institute of Technology, NASA iseries, City of Hampton, Old Dominion University 2012 - Front End of Innovation/Orlando, NN Shipbuilding & Dry Dock/Hampton Roads, Disruptive Innovations to Advance Drug Development/Boston, Optimizing Innovation/New York, Social Collaboration/Berlin 2013 - FRESH/Copenhagen 2015 - Front End of Innovation, Boston, Women in Innovation Keynote Panel 2016 - University of Southern California (USC), Interview to be used in Innovation Course 2016 - The Honors Foundation, VA Beach, VA 2016 - NYC Parson's School of Design
NASA Convergent Aeronautics Solutions, Design Thinking Program Pilot Lead. In collaboration with the University of Virginia, we are testing new virtual training environments and appliying the Design Thinking Methodology to both research/technical problems and non-research/technical problems to increase the rate and efficiency of innovation within the Agency's Aeronautics community in different location across the U.S. The NASA team includes employees from Aeronautics and Human Resources who have combined their different perspectives to create new environments. The early results have been extremely positive.
Lead the team of NASA employees that created and teach NASA's "Enhancing Your Creative Genius" Courses