Katie Steedly Curling was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Perpetually interested in the arts growing up, she sang in choirs, took dance and fiddle lessons, and performed in Equity dinner theatre productions. She was diagnosed with Turner syndrome at the age of 15 and was not derailed. She studied English, theatre, and education at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She served in the AmeriCorps right out of college after which she taught high school theatre. The arts classroom propelled her to graduate school where she studied powerful encounters with the arts within the high school theatre context. After completing her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin, she began a career in applied research, which included founding the Wide-Awakeness Project on which she still works today. She has worked with such organizations as The Academy for Educational Development, Blue Man Productions, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the University of Cincinnati, and the United States Department of Education. She has trekked the Abel Tasman, bathed in Tirta Empul, written a memoir, and finished a marathon all in the search for the why. Follow her here.