Jillian is the newly appointed Labor & Technology Intelligence Officer of the IATSE. She also served as the IATSE Artificial Intelligence Sub-Committee Chair during the 2024 IATSE-AMPTP negotiations. In this role, she is working to bridge the gap between technology’s role in the workplace and the belief that motion picture, television, stagecraft, tradeshows, and broadcast are made authentically, for humans, by humans.

Her career launched in the aerospace industry in 2008 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There, she managed high-speed, high-resolution imaging for engineering analysis as part of the Mars Program. She also participated in JPL’s Juno orbital insertion, Cassini’s farewell, and Mars Curiosity Landing. Jillian has participated in over a dozen missions, spanning the entire solar system. 

As an award-winning video engineer, Jillian specializes in recording workflow engineering, digital acquisition, and media management. She is one of the few experts in this lucrative, technically progressive area of live television. These shows include the MTV VMAs, the Emmys, the Oscars, Grease Live, NFL Honors, the Grammys and more. Additionally, she collaborated with NFL Films, TED Talks, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup Halftime Show.

In 2020, she became the first woman and the first video engineer to be elected president of IATSE Local 695 in the union’s ninety-year history. In this role, she represented on-set production sound, video, and projection workers in the Hollywood jurisdiction. In 2023, she was elected to her second term.

She is one of the first media managers to be inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She is a member of two peer groups: Science & Technology and Lighting, Camera, and Technical Arts. 

Jillian holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film Theory and History from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and a Master’s degree in Film Production—specifically in cinematography— from Chapman University.