Rebecca Ann Alexander (born February 4, 1979) is an American psychotherapist and author. Deafblind due to Usher syndrome, Alexander wrote a memoir in 2014 about coming to terms with her deteriorating sight as well as her feats as an extreme athlete, such as climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. In 2016, she received a Helen Keller Achievement Award from the American Foundation for the Blind.
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Early life and education
Rebecca Ann Alexander was born into a Jewish family on February 4, 1979, in Oakland, California, to mother Terry Pink Alexander and father David Alexander, an attorney. She has two siblings; a twin brother, Kevin, and older brother Peter Alexander, a journalist and White House correspondent for NBC News.
Alexander was diagnosed with vision loss at age twelve, originally diagnosed as retinitis pigmentosa. While in school she played soccer and participated in the Maccabiah Games, as well as attending Temple Sinai in Oakland. At age eighteen, a fall from a second-story window resulted in months of physical rehabilitation and delayed her start to college. When she began college, she began experiencing tinnitus, and received a diagnosis of Usher syndrome type III at age twenty.
Alexander earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and double master's degrees from Columbia University in social work and public health.