Aerospace engineer, mentor, and author Tiera Fletcher ’17 delivered a keynote speech at an MIT Libraries staff conference on June 13, 2023 in Bartos Theater. 

In describing her path from Mableton, Georgia, to working on NASA’s Space Launch System, [Fletcher] confesses to having a case of imposter syndrome. After a high school career full of honors and accolades, she arrived at MIT filled with hesitation. “The grades started coming in, and I thought maybe I needed to move back to Georgia,” she says. 

Then Fletcher got a tip from a fellow student to study in Barker Library. “I end up walking into this beautiful space; the architecture was amazing,” she says. “I look at the ceiling, and the hesitation kind of leaves my body, because I realize that I have been placed in this amazing space, so I must be OK, academically.”  

That moment changed the trajectory of Fletcher’s academic career...Currently the modernizations program manager and site project engineer at the Boeing Company, Fletcher shared the forces that propelled her to a career in aerospace engineering. Her talk culminated with video of the November 2022 launch of Artemis I, NASA’s uncrewed mission beyond the moon and back. Fletcher led the team conducting the functional and physical configuration audits of the rocket.

“Tiera’s talk really drove home the idea of defining your purpose,” says MIT Libraries Director Chris Bourg. 

"Tiera Fletcher ’17: Finding the purpose that propels us" by Brigham Fay, MIT News, 10 July 2023