Meet The 2026 WAVE Awards Judges
Robert Bishop
Robert is a Creative Director/Copywriter based in Kansas City where for 25+ years he’s worked on everything from local and national TVCs to online and internal videos. He’s partnered with clients and their legal departments in industries including finance, pet care, and human health. Bringing creative leadership and strategic thinking to every project, he lives for that moment when the team can really feel an idea start to come together. It never gets old.
Lori Roberts
Lori is the founder of Amplifi Marketing Group, a marketing and AI consulting agency that helps businesses leverage content, branding, automation, and emerging technologies to grow and connect with their audiences. With more than 30 years of experience spanning marketing, graphic design, entertainment, arts organizations, and education, Lori has built a career around helping organizations tell compelling stories through visual media and strategic communications. Throughout her career, she has developed marketing campaigns, promotional graphics, websites, social media content, event marketing materials, and visual branding for businesses, nonprofit organizations, musicians, performers, and entertainment venues. She also operated a talent agency providing booking, publicity, and promotional services for regional and national artists.
Benjamin Kaplan
Benjamin Kaplan is a St. Louis–based post-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, composer, and storyteller drawn to things that have no obvious business being together. His work moves between documentary and invention, combining personal histories, cultural artifacts, music, and the occasional questionable connection. Part cultural archaeologist, part unreliable documentarian, Kaplan digs through memory, mythology, and forgotten rituals, rearranging the pieces to see what emerges. He’s particularly interested in the distance between what happened, what we remember, and what we’ve convinced ourselves is true. Kaplan has a habit of following ideas well past their logical conclusion, which is often where things get interesting. His projects include Documentia, Living Like Kings, and Sleep Faster, We Need the Pillows. His work has appeared at the World Chess Hall of Fame and Foundry Art Centre. He is also an educator, founder of House of Blonsky, and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.