Always Looking Up

Sheila Xu On Her Mission To Becoming The First Deaf Astronaut


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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 and promotes the leadership potential of deaf and hard-of-hearing people and people with disabilities in all sectors. Justin is an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter with over 20 years of experience focusing on space and other STEM related fields. We discuss the importance of investing in disability entrepreneurship, how she is redefining who can be an astronaut and making outer space accessible, and much, much more.

Read The Transcript: HERE

Follow Sheila: Instagram: @sheilazxu LinkedIn: Sheila Xu Website: https://sheilaxu.com

Follow Me: Instagram: ⁠@jill_ilana⁠ , ⁠@alwayslookingup.podcast⁠ TikTok: ⁠@jillian_ilana⁠ Website: https://www.jillianilana.com Email: [email protected]

Read With Me:

⁠Goodreads⁠

⁠The StoryGraph⁠


Support Immigrant Communities (all links came from ⁠@chnge⁠):

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (⁠@chirla_org⁠): https://www.chirla.org/donatenow/⁠

Immigrant Defenders Law Center (⁠@immdef_lawcenter⁠): https://www.immdef.org

Inland Coalition 4 Imm Justice (⁠@ic4ij⁠): https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jornaleros⁠


Relief For Disabled People Impacted By The Los Angeles Fires:

Richard Devylder Disaster Relief Fund: https://disabilitydisasteraccess.org/rd-relief-fund/⁠

United Spinal Disaster Relief Grant: https://unitedspinal.org/disaster-relief-grant/⁠

Inevitable Foundation Emergency Relief Fund: ⁠https://www.inevitable.foundation/erf⁠

...more
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Always Looking UpBy Jillian Curwin

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