Bob Williams, the Policy Director of CommunicationFIRST, has advanced the rights and opportunities of children, working age persons and older adults with disabilities for over 40 years by creating community living services, helping to pass the ADA and administering the federally funded developmental disabilities and independent living networks.

Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist, writer, editor, and community organizer based in San Francisco. She is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing and amplifying disability media and culture. Alice joined CommunicationFIRST’s Advisory Council shortly after she became an AAC user. 

Coleman Watson is a federal civil rights attorney who has litigated many human rights cases, including an Eighth Amendment case culminating in a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. Before launching his law firm, Coleman worked for a major U.S. national law firm. He was on track to be, eventually, a federal judge until he had a cryptogenic stroke at 41 and was diagnosed with aphasia and apraxia.

David McNaughton, Ph.D., is a Professor of Special Education at Penn State University. He teaches coursework in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), assistive technology, collaboration skills, and grant-writing and project management. He is a Co-Leader of the Training and Dissemination Team for the RERC on AAC.

endever* corbin is a multiply disabled semispeaking autistic self-advocate. Their life has improved so markedly since getting access to AAC that they now spend a lot of their time on research, presentations, consulting, and mentoring related to it. Xe also works as the self-advocate training coordinator at Oregon’s LEND program (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities).

Pancho Ramirez is the current Vice Chair of CommunicationFIRST's Board of Directors. As a Mexican immigrant farmworker, he acquired his speech disability in 2003 at age 20 from a brain stem stroke after a car accident. Mr. Ramirez has become an instrumental member of a research team at the University of California, San Francisco, that is developing groundbreaking communication technology to produce words from thought. 

Grant Blasko is a young adult nonspeaking autistic student and part of the Summit's Organizing Committee. He is a University of Washington DO-IT Scholar, an active member of TASH’s National Communication Access Workgroup, and a CommunicationFIRST Advisory Council member. He has served as a stakeholder on panels guiding autism professionals at the American Occupational Therapy Association, CAST, and the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).

Glenda Watson Hyatt is perhaps the most prominent and formidable voice advocating for Canadians living with speech disabilities. Watson Hyatt’s lived experience with cerebral palsy may seem to stand in the way of traditional speech communication. But few people have said as much, nor resonated so broadly than her. Her research “Recruiting, hiring, and retaining employees with speech disabilities in Canada” attracted partnership from the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW). In her role as a communication access advocate, she is an author and, yes, a keynote speaker. And she proves daily that someone with a speech disability still has a powerful voice.

Godfrey Nazareth, MS, is a Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur, Biomedical Engineer, and Research Scientist. As an innovator and leader, Godfrey has made significant contributions to various industries. Godfrey's notable collaborations include the US Military, US Air Force, US Space Force, American Heart Association, University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn State University, Drexel University, Temple University, and the Philadelphia Pediatric Medical Device Consortium. Godfrey has been proactively battling motor neuron disease, and he uses custom and self-built assistive devices to function, operate, and interact at the highest levels possible.

Gregg Vanderheiden, Ph.D.,  is the Founder of the Trace R&D Center, Professor in the iSchool at the University of Maryland, and President of non-profit Raising the Floor. He has been active in the field of technology and disability for over 50 years and was a pioneer in the field of Augmentative Communication, assistive technology, and computer access.

Jordyn Zimmerman, Board Chair of CommunicationFIRST, is a passionate educator and disability advocate. After being diagnosed as autistic at a young age, she did not receive access to augmentative communication until the age of 18. That journey fuels many of her beliefs around leveraging tools and supports to drive change. Jordyn earned her Bachelor's degree in Education Policy from Ohio University and her Master's of Education at Boston College. She is currently pursuing her Master's of Business Administration.

Lance McLemore is an AAC user who has spoken at state, national, and international conferences. He is a contract employee for PRC-Saltillo and a Co-Leader of the Training and Dissemination team for the RERC on AAC at Penn State. He advocates for the full inclusion of AAC users in all aspects of society through his speaking engagements and writing.

Lateef McLeod is building his career as a writer and a scholar. He has earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. He is a seventh-year graduate student in the Anthropology and Social Change doctoral program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He has published three books of poetry and is currently writing a novel. He was in the 2007 and 2016 annual theater performances of Sins Invalid and also in their artist-in-residence performance in 2011 entitled Residence Alien. In 2019 he started a podcast entitled Black Disabled Men Talk. In 2022 he was an award recipient of the Wynn Newhouse Award for his long career as a disabled artist.

Melissa Crisp-Cooper is a writer, adventure seeker, and advocate. She uses many forms of AAC. Melissa is the Associate Director of Participant Experience at The Arc San Francisco. Before joining The Arc, she helped develop educational and policy material related to health care for people with disabilities for the Office of Developmental Primary Care at UCSF. Melissa and her husband Owen live in Oakland, California with two opinionated black cats! Together, they love to travel and eat good food.

Patrick Regan has been an AAC user for more than 27 years.  He experiences Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2, and he received his first speech-generating device a few months after his second birthday.  Patrick is USSAAC’s President Elect. He is also a member of ISAAC’s LEAD committee. He is employed as a Media Tech Coordinator, and a Senior Media Tech for St. John United Methodist Church in Anchorage, Alaska.  And he serves as the Coordinator of Activities and Events, and Co-President for Bridging Communities Through Alternative Communication (“BCTAC”), an adult outreach program of The Bridge School, in Hillsborough, California.

Ren Koloni, pronouns they/them, is a justice worker and Program Associate at CommunicationFIRST. As a multiply disabled and chronically ill autistic person with some access to speech, they’ve been doing justice work from the sickbed for over a decade. They earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Gender Studies from the University of Mary Washington and a master’s in English from George Washington University, where they focused on disability and racial justice through the lens of trauma studies and narrative.

Tim Jin is a Communication Expert and Advocate who serves on several boards, government taskforces. and committees, and routinely speaks professionally at conferences and training seminars about his passion to expand communication access for everyone. Additionally, he directs Empowerment Programs at Disability Voices United and actively pursues personal fulfillment through the Self-Determination Program.

Tracy Rackensperger, Ph.D., currently holds the faculty position of Public Service Assistant within the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia. She currently leads the Institute’s AAC activities and oversees projects related to the employment of people with disabilities. Dr. Rackensperger has published scholarly works regarding augmentative communication. She has personally used AAC for over 40 years. She is a Project Co-Leader for Training and Dissemination with the RERC on AAC.

Dr. Anjali J. Forber-Pratt is the director of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). Globally, Dr. Forber-Pratt is involved with disability advocacy efforts related to access to employment, education and sports. She was honored with the inaugural American Psychological Association Citizen Psychologist Award for Advancing Disability as a Human Rights and Social Justice Issue Award in 2020.

Alison Barkoff was sworn in as Principal Deputy Administrator on January 20, 2021, and is currently performing the duties of the ACL Administrator and the Assistant Secretary for Aging.  She provides executive leadership and coordination for ACL programs nationwide and advises the HHS Secretary on issues affecting people with disabilities and older adults.

Erik Jakobs currently works as a software developer within the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department at Penn State University. He has been the primary developer on most of the projects within the current RERC on AAC and a co-leader of the Research and Development team. Before Penn State, he worked at InvoTek providing technical support to people with disabilities. During that time, he managed the development of twelve Phase 1 and two Phase 2 SBIR projects. 

Christine Holyfield, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Arkansas. She researches and teaches coursework on augmentative and alternative communication, and is the co-leader of one of the research projects for the RERC on AAC.

Susan Fager, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is the Scottish Rite Associate Professor and Director of the Speech-Language Pathology Department at the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Munroe Meyer Institute. Her current research focuses on the development and clinical evaluation of new and emerging alternative access methods to AAC as well as the development of apps to support training and clinical decision-making for AAC. Dr. Fager is a partner with the RERC on AAC.

Heidi Koester is President of Koester Performance Research (KPR), and is co-leader of the R&D team focused on AAC solutions for individuals with acquired conditions. She earned a PhD in bioengineering from the University of Michigan. She has over 20 years of experience as researcher in AT, with a focus on using quantitative data and user modeling to improve computer access, resulting in numerous products used worldwide.

Janice Light, Ph.D. holds the Hintz Family Endowed Chair on Children’s Communicative Competence at Penn State University, and is the Principal Investigator for the RERC on AAC. The quality of her research and teaching has been recognized through the Faculty Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Social and Behavioral Sciences, the Distinguished Research Career Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the International Society for AAC Distinguished Lecturer Award.

Jon Brumberg, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas, where he directs the undergraduate program in Behavioral Neuroscience. His research focuses on development of brain-computer interfaces for restoring communication and accessing augmentative and alternative communication devices.

Jessica Gormley, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor and Research Coordinator in the Speech-Language Pathology Department at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Munroe-Meyer Institute. Her research and clinical practice focuses on developing and evaluating tools, strategies, and programs to equip communication partners to interact effectively with people who use AAC in healthcare settings. She works on a communication partner training development project with the RERC on AAC and is a co-organizer of the Patient-Provider Communication Network.

India Ochs (she/her) has been involved in human rights, social policy, and educational advocacy for more than 35 years. Co-author of three published books, India's writings have appeared in professional journals, magazines, newspapers, and social media outlets. Licensed to practice law, India has a JD with a certificate in family law & social policy from Syracuse University College of Law, and a master's degree in public affairs with a certificate in nonprofit management from UNC-Greensboro.