Always Looking Up

In this week’s episode I sat down with Richard Whitehead MBE. Richard is a Paralympic Gold Medallist, world record holder, professional athlete, marathon runner and a passionate diversity and inclusion champion. Richard is now currently the fastest amputee runner in the world and is undertaking an epic 20 marathon challenge around the world throughout 2025, to bring him to an incredible 100 marath...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Ashton McGrady. Ashton is a Charlotte-based creator sharing beauty, fashion, and lifestyle content through the lens of someone living with a disability. She is especially passionate about accessibility in the beauty space and loves spotlighting inclusive products and creative ways to make your routine work for you. Alongside her creator work, Ashton is the co...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Violet Ferguson. Violet is an emerging producer, content creator, and disability advocate based near Toronto, Ontario. Over the past few years, she’s focused on sharing disability-led stories and supporting disabled voices through her filmmaking and advocacy work. She recently served as the associate producer on the award-nominated series The Squeaky Wheel: C...

This episode celebrates 200 episodes of Always Looking Up, an incredible milestone that I am so incredibly proud of and grateful for. I wanted to take the time to reflect on what it means having gotten this far and the journey to get here, highlighting some milestone moments, look ahead towards where I want to be, where I want the podcast to be, and to say thank you to my brother, the audience, an...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Sheila Xu and her interpreter Justin Baldi. Sheila is an oral and signing Deaf woman who broke barriers as one of the first deaf commercial analog astronaut trainees and the first deaf Asian female pilot. As Director of Development at AstroAccess, a non-profit advancing disability inclusion in the space sector, she holds degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Wharton...

In the 200th episode of Always Looking Up I sat down with Ellie Simmonds. Ellie is a five-time Paralympic Champion and a fourteen time World Champion in the sport of para swimming. Ellie shot to fame when she won her first Paralympic Gold medal at just 13 years old at the Beijing Paralympics and after that summer success was the youngest ever recipient of an MBE, an award from the Queen at the age...

Trigger Warning: In this episode we do discuss sensitive topics related to mental health such as addiction and self harm. If these are triggers for you please feel free to skip this episode. In this week’s episode I sat down with Jen Montzingo. Jen is proud to serve in Los Angeles local politics in various ways such as serving on the North Hollywood Neighborhood Council and sitting on the Los Ange...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Aariana Rose Philip. Aariana is a groundbreaking trans model from The Bronx, by way of Antigua and Barbuda, known for championing representation for disabled and trans women of color in fashion. Represented by Supreme New York, she has starred in global campaigns, graced major magazine covers including British Vogue, and continues to push for a more inclusive...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Catarina Rivera. Catarina is a dynamic public speaker, DEIA consultant, and content creator. She works with companies to improve disability awareness, inclusion, and accessibility. As a disabled Latiné woman, she is passionate about sharing her own unique story to help build a more inclusive world. We discuss how her life experiences shaped her career, changi...

Welcome Back! In this week’s episode of Always Looking Up I sat down with Jenna Bainbridge. Jenna is an actor, singer, co-founder, disability rights advocate and executive producer of two of my favorite TikTok series. She navigates the world as an ambulatory wheelchair user and, in 2024 became the first wheelchair user to perform in a New Musical on Broadway when she made her debut in Suffs. Now s...

Dear Diary, We have some housekeeping to do, and then let's start a conversation about how the world see's (or doesn't see) dwarf bodies. This episode is the newest in my Jillian's Diary series on Patreon available to my "Second Step-Stool" tier. Join The Patreon: Click  ⁠⁠⁠Here⁠⁠⁠ Follow Me: Instagram:  ⁠⁠⁠@jill_ilana⁠⁠⁠  ,  ⁠⁠⁠@alwayslookingup.podcast⁠⁠⁠  TikTok:  ⁠⁠⁠@j...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Liz Gutman. Liz is the Head Audio Description Writer at International Digital Centre in New York City. She has written award-winning AD for 850+ hours of movies and TV, and proudly works as an instructor with Audio Description Training Retreats. We discuss making and creating content that is digitally accessible, how she explains and defines access f*ckery an...

In celebration of May being Mental Health Awareness Month I am honored to have sat down with Kirsten Ferguson. A successful career woman turned Peloton fitness instructor, Kirsten wholeheartedly embraces the changes that life brings. After seven years of working with the NFL, she shifted her focus to family. Her journey to motherhood was not easy, and fitness helped Kirsten strengthen her body and...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Peet Montzingo. Peet Montzingo is one of the top social media content creators who has over 21.5M subscribers on his YouTube channel, 14.2M followers on his TikTok, and 3.1M followers on his Instagram. Known for his comedic videos that feature his family and daily life, his content also dabbles in the supernatural, where he formerly lived across the street fr...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Keah Brown. Keah is an award winning journalist, author, and screenwriter. Her work on disability, identity, and pop culture has appeared in Town & Country Magazine, Teen Vogue, Elle, The LA Times, Marie Claire UK, And The New York Times, among other publications. We discuss the connection between disability and celebrity, not having time for imposter syn...

In this episode I sat down with Anna Pakman, Margo Gignac and James Ian, the writer/director and stars of Emergency Plan, a new short film for the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge. Emergency Plan stars Margo and James as a disabled couple forced to send their young son out alone after a catastrophic East Coast earthquake — when it becomes clear no one is coming to help them evacuate. Ali Stro...

In this episode I sat down with Rachel Handler. Rachel is a filmmaker and actor known for her stint as Peg Leg Doris on AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire” and her award-winning Slamdance films “Committed” and “HOW MUCH AM I WORTH?” We discuss the magic of theater and storytelling, her creative processes as both an actor and a writer, the importance of something like the Easterseals Disability Film...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Mariadeliz Santiago. Maria is a NYC-based disabled content creator, speaker, and advocate who uses her platform to champion authentic representation and accessibility in media. As a Latina with an upper limb difference and chronic conditions like Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and new daily persistent headache (NDPH), she creates impactful content that bridge...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Makenzie Morgan Gomez. Makenzie is a Mexican-American, queer, dynamically disabled performer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a member of Actors' Equity Association and recently made her Off-Broadway debut starring as Libby in Neil Simon's I Ought To Be In Pictures at Theatre Row, where she used both a cane and a manual wheelchair on stage. We discuss go...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Mark Povinelli. Mark is an activist as well as an actor on stage and screen. He is currently portraying Benjamin Lay, shepherd, sailor, revolutionary, the British Empire's first revolutionary abolitionist, and someone whose story for too long has not been told, in the Off-Broadway production of The Return of Benjamin Lay. We discuss who Benjamin Lay was, how...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Rachel Wherley, Erin Elswood, and Shelby Holloway, the co-directors of the Mascots Matter campaign. Mascots Matter is an independent grassroots advocacy initiative calling for the retirement of offensive disability mascots. We discuss the origins of the “m” slur and its continued, harmful use through to present day, the founding of Mascots Matter and its advo...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Felicia Gans Sobey. Felicia is a deputy editor of content strategy at The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is also a retired theater kid, an avid watcher of 90s/early 2000s TV, a Kindle obsessive, a dark chocolate lover, and a longtime friend of yours truly. As we are two Pisces girls turning 30, celebrating a friendship that has lasted half our lives thus far, I i...

In this week’s episode I sat down with Melanie Waldman. Melanie is a multi-award-winning filmmaker with the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, a member of SAG-AFTRA, an on-air talent member at QVC, host of the Disability Reality Podcast (which, yours truly, will be making an appearance on very soon talking all things on Bravo), and she STILL somehow finds time to teach adaptive yoga to the dis...

For context, this episode was recorded on February 19, 2025. In this week’s episode I sat down with Eliza Orlins. Eliza Orlins is a career public defender who has represented close to 4000 people charged with crimes in Manhattan over the last 13+ years. She’s an outspoken advocate and can be found raging against injustice on her social media platforms. We discuss the misunderstandings and misrepre...

In this week’s episode it is just me and the microphone as I sit down to answer your questions about my ongoing surgery recovery journey, healing in a world that was not necessarily designed for me, ending the chapter that was my twenties and preparing to enter the chapter that will be my thirties. Relief For Disabled People Impacted By The Los Angeles Fires: Richard Devylder Disaster Relief Fund:...