Kyle Funck

Athlete, Brainstormer, Concerned citizen, Engineer

I began my career at Lockheed Martin working in radar systems, where I learned to break down complex technical challenges into solvable pieces. That mindset carried me into Strategic Missile Defense programs, where high‑stakes environments demanded adaptability, resilience, and creative engineering. My success in tackling difficult problems led me to the LM Space Leadership Development Program, sharpening my ability to lead multidisciplinary teams. Over the next six years, I’ll be leading teams to send a spacecraft and its scientific instruments to Venus, investigating the history of Venus with the hopes of gleaning an insight into earth's future.

Defense Industry, Space Exploration

I started watching TED Talks long before I ever stepped onto a stage or joined a team. At first, they were simply a way for me to process, understand, and name emotions I didn’t yet have language for. They helped me make sense of myself. By my senior year of high school, I volunteered at TEDxPSU, not knowing that it would become one of the most defining communities of my life. When I arrived at Penn State as a freshman, I joined the team as a speaking consultant — and for the first time since middle school, I felt like I had found the community I’d been searching for. My sophomore year, in the middle of Covid, I was promoted to assistant content director. It was a moment when people desperately needed connection, and I helped guide stories and ideas that carried them through a tumultuous time. The following year, I became content director, where I had the privilege of providing a platform for people with compelling ideas to convey then through stories that were heartbreaking, heartwarming, and deeply human. Eventually, the team voted me in as curator, a role where I deepened the connection between the TEDx community and Penn State and helped shape the identity of the organization itself. Now, I mentor and advise the board of directors on growth, development, sponsorships, and leadership decisions. What began as a way to understand my own emotions has become a place where I help others share theirs — a community built on ideas, storytelling, and the belief that meaning grows strongest and fastest when it’s shared.

I’m secretly good at pushing my body to its limit without breaking it and without clinging to the things I achieve because of it. I climb v13 (top 1% of all climbers) and am chasing a sub‑12 hour Ironman not just because I’m strong, but because I understand that effort is is within my control and memory and meaning are both fluid. I move through the world catching a moment without clinging to it, building a life while accepting that its foundations will someday be replaced. My real talent — the one beneath the athleticism — is navigating impermanence with intention, turning both the things I remember and the things I forget into a mythology worth living.