Julienne Dallara has an immense and varied background that she uses daily as she negotiates the world of accessibility. Her experiences include careers in public speaking, 20 years of comedy-improv; acting, dancing, and singing in off-Broadway shows; her reign as Ms. Wheelchair California 2024 and even work as a G7 government employee living in a remote Alaskan Quonset hut. Add in her work as a marketing and advertising analyst in San Francisco and a drama student in London, and you can see she has lived up to her motto, “I’ll try anything once!”
Julienne has great love and respect for the Abilities Expo, where she worked for 13 years. She is also a consultant, writer, and interviewer, having sold many stories of people with disabilities. Currently she is working on a women’s podcast for the non-profit, Live to Roll.
In 1996 Julienne woke up paralyzed from a rare disease: Transverse Myelitis. This ended both her acting career and her marriage, but she found incredible joy raising her babies to the wonderful adults they are now. Julienne is not the type of person who dwells on defeat, she continues to use her passion to connect people with the resources they need.
Julienne’s vision is that we all need to work together to serve our population—learn to share! She envisions a world in which all people with disabilities will be able to find the resources they need. “Let’s drop our egos at the door and get the work done—together.”
