Bio

• From: Oakland, CA
• Ethnicity: Hispanic

Blind since birth, Martinez is an internationally recognized disability rights leader. She was appointed executive director of the Oakland-based World Institute on Disability (WID) in 2005. She directs Proyecto Visión, WID’s National Technical Assistance Center to increase employment opportunities for Latinos with disabilities in the United States, and Access to Assets, an asset-building project to help reduce poverty among people with disabilities. In 2007 she was appointed a member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and in 2005 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed her as one of eight public members of the newly-established State Department advisory committee on disability and foreign policy. In 2002 she was appointed by President Bush as one of 15 members of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency advising the president and Congress on disability policy.

Last Job

• World Institute on Disability, executive director

Choices at a Glance

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