Our Ambassadors

Christine Ha is the first-ever blind contestant and season 3 winner of TV’s MasterChef. Ha holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Houston and a Bachelor of Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin. Her first cookbook, Recipes from My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food, was a New York Times bestseller. Ha has also spoken about disability advocacy at the United Nations and served as a culinary envoy overseas for the U.S. Embassy as part of cultural diplomacy programs in Jordan, Serbia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Croatia.

The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change. She received the Helen Keller Achievement Award, a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and TIME100 Talks. President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Chancellor Angela Merkel have all honored Haben.

Hoby Wedler, Ph.D., is a scientist, sensory expert, and entrepreneur. In 2011, Wedler founded Accessible Science, a nonprofit organization that leads annual chemistry camps for blind or visually impaired students throughout North America. That same year, he began opening doors to the world of wine aromas by holding blindfolded wine tastings in Francis Ford Coppola’s wineries. In 2012, he was named a Champion of Change by President Barack Obama for enhancing employment and education opportunities for people with disabilities.

Marcus Roberts, hailed as the “the genius of the modern piano,” taught himself to play piano at age five after losing his sight, and stated taking lessons at 12. At 18, he went on to study classical piano at Florida State University. Roberts has won numerous competitions and awards, including a Grammy nomination and AFB’s Helen Keller Achievement Award in 1998.

Matthew Whitaker taught himself to play piano at age 3, the Hammond B3 organ at age 9, and four years later he became the youngest artist to be endorsed by Hammond in its more than 80-year history. He was also named a Yamaha Artist at 15, becoming the youngest musician to join the stellar group of jazz pianists. Just shy of 20 years old, this multi-instrumentalist is currently enrolled in the jazz studies program at Juilliard in New York City, the first person who is blind to be accepted in the program.

Rebecca Alexander is an author, psychotherapist, group fitness instructor, advocate, and extreme athlete who is almost completely blind and deaf. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she currently lives in New York City.

Russell Shaffer is serving as emcee for our "Dinner and Music for a Historic Celebration" event. He is the senior director of Global Culture, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Walmart Inc. and AFB’s former board chair. Russell has worked at Walmart for over a decade and has held roles managing global internal communications and benefits communications, in addition to previously overseeing corporate strategy and stakeholder relations for aging constituencies and people with disabilities.