Appearance: Average in height, Kaylee has an athletic body honed by her years in the Army. She has long dark hair that is usually tied up and out of the way, chocolate brown eyes and an attractive oval face. She doesn't care all that much about appearance and has almost never worn makeup.
Personality: Kaylee is a good mediator and diplomat; skills gained from being around her father and honed after his death by virtue of living the life of an army brat. She is fairly quiet and happy to keep to herself for long stretches of time and tends to become completely absorbed by whatever project she is involved in at the time.
Kaylee takes some persistence to get to know, as she does not trust easily. Once, however you have her loyalty as a friend or colleague it will never waver and those lucky enough to have this trust will see that her personality is much more interesting than first thought.
She has one very annoying habit of cracking incredibly bad jokes, one-liners and puns to break the ice or relieve a tense situation. This trait often catches people off guard coming from such a usually quiet character. This is a habit she picked up as a child from her father and she has fond memories of the two of them exchanging one-liners for hours on end.
Her passion for science was driven by an urge to know how biological systems work, which ultimately led to her molecular biology major... after all, everything starts at the genes coded in our DNA.
While Kaylee may appear quiet or even broody to the outsider, she actually has a highly adventurous and upbeat character. She's good to have around in a crisis, a loyal friend and she excels at problem-solving. These traits along with her combined military and science training make her a useful and dedicated team member.
Bio: Kaylee Mara is an only child. She was born in Australia where her parents were stationed at the American Embassy. Her father was a diplomat and her mother an army security specialist assigned to guard the embassy. She lived in Australia until the age of 13 when her father was killed in an unfortunate car accident.
She returned to America with her mother, where she lived the life of an army brat, moving with her mother from posting to posting. During this time, she learnt to keep her opinions and thoughts to herself until she got to know a person well. This character trait served her well each time she was forced to move to a new place and school.
She left school with an impeccable academic record and took up a scholarship offer to study a Bachelor of Science at a reputable university. During her time at university Kaylee made a few close friends (who nicknamed her Kay) and also had her heart broken by a succession of poorly chosen male companions. She finally majored in micro and molecular biology, with minors in parasitology and physiology.
At the urging of her mother, Kaylee then joined up with the US Army. Following basic training, she was assigned to a specialist team whose role was to identify and track terrorists that posed a possible biological threat and if possible neutralise the threat. During this time, she racked up an impressive field record and gained the call sign "Ninja" after an incident in which she pulled some impressive martial arts moves on her CO after he deigned to pinch her ass.
Her impressive field record and in particular her biological training finally caught the attention of someone in the Stargate project. She had worked in Cheyenne mountain base for 3 months in a scientific role, mainly studying samples of Goa'uld parasites and their means of controlling the immune system, when she was asked to hold everything else and run PCR tests for a so-called Atlatian gene on all base personnel. Surprisingly, she was one of the few individuals that came up positive.
Suddenly Kaylee found herself part of a large international team heading through the stargate to the lost city of Atlantis. She said her goodbyes to her mother, telling her only that she may not return. Her mother while sad, also beamed with military pride.
Kaylee was promoted to First Lieutenant in August, 2005.
November, 2005: Kaylee was promoted to Captain and appointed CO of Delta Team.
