Stonehill Alum featured in new film “Learning to Fly”

By Maddi Achtyl

Driven by a passion for documenting the human experience through sport with her camera, Stonehill alum Aisha McAdams’ career is rooted in storytelling. Now, she is in front of the lens as the subject of a new documentary, Learning to Fly.

McAdams, former photo editor for The Summit and a member of the Class of 2017, is featured in the documentary about ultra running produced by filmmaker Max Lowe. As an award-winning photographer and photojournalist, the film follows McAdams’ work as it centers on the athletes and the stories that unfold in moments of triumph and struggle.

Photo Credits: Maureen Boyle

Aisha first met Lowe in 2021 while working on a project together, and the two quickly connected over a shared interest in family-driven storytelling. Lowe previously directed Torn, a deeply personal film about his family, while McAdams hoped to tell a similar story about her life.

Years later, he reached out to her again while researching a new project centered on ultrarunning and trail running. He initially sought her advice on athletes with compelling stories and insight into the sport for a planned film.

McAdams helped him gain a better understanding of the sport and its athletes, but he quickly realized her experiences, her relationship with running, and her family would be a story worth telling.

The result was the film, titled Learning to Fly, which premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival in Colorado this past September.

The documentary follows Aisha as she follows the successes and struggles of some of the best athletes in the world. Aisha follows two ultrarunners, Jim Walmsley and Eszter Csillag, as they compete in two of the sport's most grueling races: the Western States Endurance Run in the Mountains of eastern California and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) in the French Alps.

McAdams’ work, recognized for its intimacy, captures athletes at their most vulnerable moments, so building their trust is a very important part of her job. Her ability to relate to and understand them stems from being an athlete most of her life, including at Stonehill where she ran Cross Country and Track and Field for four years while double majoring in Communications and Visual and Performing Arts and minoring in Journalism.

McAdams was a major contributor on the Cross Country and Track teams during her four years, said coach Karen Boen. She served as a captain and played a major role in helping the team to win three Northeast 10 championships in four years.

McAdams still holds two of the top three all-time performances in Stonehill history in both the one mile and the 3000m (two miles), with a 4:51.27 one mile time and a 9:49.23 3000m time.

Coach Boen described McAdams as a dedicated athlete and leader, loyal and passionate in her beliefs and loyal person to those around her.

McAdams said she appreciated the talents of the runners she documents in the film. “I've never been on that scale, but I know that feeling. You're in this very vulnerable place where you're about to do something, you're about to put yourself on the line, about to take a risk,” McAdams, who grew up in Rhode Island, said.

While capturing these elite athletes' journeys, McAdams confronts her own painful and complicated past, and the reasons why she had to step away from running, a sport that once brought her a sense of freedom, joy, and belonging.

“Navigating things out in the open was intimidating at first, but as challenging as things had been in my past, those are some things that really taught me a lot about life,” said McAdams.

The film had a screening recently in Providence, Rhode Island, where about 100 of McAdams' friends and family showed up to support the film. At the screening, she posted QR codes in the theater, urging people to donate to the Stonehill Cross Country and Track teams.