A Chat with Star Trek Alumn Keegan de Lancie

John de Lancie is a familiar face to most Star Trek fans, having played Q, one of the franchise’s most legendary guest characters across three different Star Trek series.

He recently made an appearance at Wizard World Philly 2010, along with several other Star Trek actors, one of which was his son, Keegan de Lancie. Keegan played the son of Q on Star Trek: Voyager, and took the stage with his father during a Q&A session on Saturday of the convention.

What many fans may not realize is that Keegan made a radical departure from his days of wearing a Starfleet uniform and pestering Voyager’s crew. After attending college at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and going to Jordan on a Fulbright Scholarship to study Iraqi refugees, he ended up working for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.

Geekadelphia had a chance to talk with Keegan for a few minutes on Sunday of the convention. A transcript is below, after the jump!

Yesterday in the Q&A you mentioned working for a section of the [United Nations]. How did you make the transition from actor in Star Trek to working in the UN?

Keegan de Lancie: Very easily. To be honest, that was always my interest. So I did some acting, some singing, what have you, in high school, but my academic interests were always international development, diplomacy, and conflict resolution. I went from high school to college, studied that in college, and then straight to the Middle East to work.

What did you major in in college?

KdL: I had a double major: Arab cultures, and something called Peace, War, and Defense, which is essentially security studies. It was a good time.

When you do the [fandom] conventions with your dad, how do you all decide what conventions to do? Is it usually just strictly about schedule, are there certain ones you like going back to every year…?

KdL: It’s strictly schedule. I mean, I haven’t done a convention in years, because again, I don’t do this.

Yeah, I imagine coming back over, doing cross-continental trips would get tiring.

KdL: Exactly. So I don’t do it for this. I had an interview with the state department in Washington, so I was there last week. And then I was in the country and decided I’d come up and see, my parents were coming to the East Coast, so I figured I’d visit them. So really it’s sort of serendipitous that this happened at the same time and that I was in the country for it. So we came to do it together because we’re already together.

So was your dad relieved that you decided to go a different route, other than show business?

KdL: I think so, yes. Very much.

Thanks again to Keegan de Lancie for giving Geekadelphia a few minutes of his time during Wizard World Philly 2010!