Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's Carla Mingiardi Tribute Explained

Early in the third episode of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy," titled "Vitus Reflux," drill instructor Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) explains to the Academy's cadets that they are about to engage in an extended combat exercise. The game is very much like Capture the Flag, with amusing mascots guarding each side's goal. All the cadets are armed with phasers, although the phasers are specially attuned to instantaneously transport "victims" into a penalty box instead of stunning them. Lura Thok is very serious, though, and screams her orders. When a cadet tries to fill in one of her sentences, he is immediately punished with 100 push-ups. 

Then, to lighten the mood, another professor, Jet Reno (Tig Notaro), enters and points out that the uniforms that the cadets get to wear during their game will most certainly make them look cool. And they are snazzy uniforms, with padded black vests that have Starfleet logos on them and are worn over comfortable looking red tunics. They look functional and weirdly fashionable. 

At the end of the episode, the cadets discover that they have now been assigned their very own letterman jackets. It seems that, even in the 32nd century, some college traditions remain. The final shot of "Vitus Reflux" is a close-up of the back of one of the letterman jackets, displaying a glorious Starfleet Academy logo. 

The episode then cuts to black and reveals that it was made "In loving memory of Carla Mingiardi." As it were, the late Mingiardi (who passed away in 2024) worked in the costume department on both "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Star Trek: Short Treks." Perhaps the focus on the costumes in "Starfleet Academy" was a way for the showrunners to draw attention to her department and the contributions she made to the "Star Trek" universe at large.

Carla Mingiardi was born in Ontario, Canada, on May 10, 1965, and made a living as a costume cutter. Her earliest "Star Trek" credit was "The Escape Artist," a 2019 episode of "Short Treks" featuring the character Harry Mudd (Rainn Wilson). After that, she proceeded to work on nine episodes of "Star Trek: Discovery" season 3, starting with the season premiere ("The Hope That is You, Part 1").

Mingiardi, however, had an extensive costuming career that went well beyond the "Star Trek" franchise. Her earliest screen credits included director Michael Winterbottom's 2014 film "The Face of an Angel," and she also cut costumes for the 2016 war picture "The Exception," which starred Lily James, Jai Courtney, and Christopher Plummer. After that, Mingiardi landed her first job working on a major Hollywood picture with 2018's "The Girl in the Spider's Web" in 2018. She then proceeded to land her most high-profile film by working on the costumes for director Guillermo del Toro's 2021 version of "Nightmare Alley."

In terms of television, Mingiardi also worked as a costume cutter on 24 episodes of "What We Do in the Shadows." According to her obituary, she fell in love with fashion at an early age and spent a great portion of her life in Italy, where she founded her own drafting and patterning business. She died of cancer on September 9, 2024. Her family requested that, in her honor, donations be made to the Hospice Waterloo Region or the Grand River Hospital Foundation, Cancer Centre.

It was very thoughtful of the "Starfleet Academy" creatives to pay tribute to Mingiardi, who was likely one of the backbones of the streaming-era "Star Trek" TV franchise's costume department. May her memory be a blessing.