Board of Directors

President: Esther Rimer

Esther Rimer, a native adult cuer, was elected to lead the NCSA Board of Directors for the term beginning September 1, 2020.

Esther Rimer served on the NCSA Board of Directors in 2008–2010. Esther was a teaching intern with the NCSA Deaf Children’s Literacy Project in 2006. Esther grew up in South Carolina and graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She holds an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Before going into the museum field, Esther worked as a historical archaeologist in the American southeast. She currently works with anthropology and archaeology collections for a natural history museum in Washington, D.C.

Email Esther

Immediate Past President: Anne Huffman

Anne is the sister of Leah Henegar, the first deaf child to use Cued Speech. She grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburbs as one of five children born to Robert and Mary Elsie Henegar. When the Henegars learned that Leah was deaf, Dr. Cornett had just developed Cued Speech and was looking for a family willing to take a chance on this new system.

Anne grew up cueing and in the early days often participated in workshops to help Dr. Cornett demonstrate Cued Speech from the sibling perspective. She later helped teach CS to younger family members at Gallaudet summer camps. After high school, Anne moved to North Carolina with the family and graduated from North Carolina State University with a B.S. in Biology. She has spent most of her career in medical device and pharmaceutical testing, first in Toledo, Ohio, where she met her husband John, followed by jobs in the Chicago area. Anne is now Senior Director of Quality Assurance for global generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Fresenius Kabi, with U.S. operations based in Chicago. She is currently on a long-term assignment at their plant in western New York. She is the proud mother of Hannah, who recently graduated from Boston University with a degree in Journalism.

Email Anne

1st Vice President: Nicole Dugan

Nicole Dugan grew up in New Jersey and had CLTs throughout her entire education. She attended RIT and graduated with a B.S. in Psychology, an M.S. in Human Resource Development, and an MBA.

She lives in Rochester, NY, and works at a local community college as a Data Analyst. She enjoys the outdoors (when it’s not freezing), sports, creativity, and spending time with furry and loved ones.

Email Nicole

2nd Vice President: Rachel McAnallen

Rachel McAnallen is a native cuer and proficient signer. Rachel was born with severe-profound deafness and wears a cochlear implant and a hearing aid. While growing up in the Chicago, IL, suburbs she acted and danced for the International Center on Deafness and the Arts.

In 2013, Rachel earned her B.S. in Environmental Technology and M.S. in Environmental, Health, and Safety Management from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf/Rochester Institute of Technology. Rachel is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Maryland and specializes in environmental protection and compliance. After serving in the Department of Defense, she is currently working at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Rachel first joined the NCSA Board of Directors as a Regional Representative during the 2017–2020 term and became a certified instructor of Cued Speech through the NCSA’s InsCert program in 2018. Since then she has taught children how to cue at Arlington County Public Schools’ American Sign Language-Cued English A.C.E.S. camp. Rachel started teaching adults Cued Speech through Maryland/District of Columbia’s Hands and Voices Chapter. She has presented at the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) national conference twice and at the Virginia EHDI Committee. 

She lives in Burke, VA, with her husband (a fluent cuer!) and their three children. 

Email Rachel

Treasurer: Suhad Keblawi

Suhad is the parent of a deaf native cuer. She is a certified Cued Language Transliterator, a transliterator trainer, and an NCSA Certified Instructor of Cued Speech. She is a lead transliterator for W. T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County Public Schools. Suhad is a Virginia Department of Education Grant coordinator for Cued Language Transliterator training.

Email Suhad

Secretary: Sara Sizemore

Sara is a native deaf cuer who has been cueing since being diagnosed hard of hearing at 18 months old. She attended Wake Forest University and later received her Ph.D. in Physics at Arizona State University. She currently lives in San Jose, California, with her husband and enjoys cooking and hiking in her leisure time.

Email Sara

Academic Advisory Chair: Dr. Donna Morere

Donna Morere, Ph.D., was a member of the faculty of the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at Gallaudet University from August of 1990 until her retirement at the end of December 2020. She has over three decades of experience in performing and reviewing research with deaf and hard of hearing individuals and has published multiple papers and book chapters on a range of topics concerning research, assessment, literacy, and intervention with deaf and hard of hearing individuals. She has offered a wide range of workshops and presentations for both professional and parent/teacher groups concerning the assessment of deaf individuals, deaf individuals and literacy, deaf children with disabilities, and the value of Cued Speech for enhancement of literacy in deaf individuals. She is involved in the review and publication of research on deaf individuals and has offered consultation to a wide range of researchers and clinicians working with deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Dr. Morere is the mother of an adult deaf son who has been exposed to both ASL and Cued American English since infancy.

Email Donna

Camps and Affiliates: Vacant

Interested in becoming our Director of Camps and Affiliates? Contact Esther Rimer.

Community Engagement: Vacant

Interested in becoming our Director of Community Engagement? Contact Esther Rimer.

Government Liaison: Ben Lachman

Ben is a native cuer and an alumnus of the Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School in Wheeling, IL, that was founded in 1985 by his parents, Ronald and Mary Ann Lachman along with Ann Bleuer and other families.

Benjamin received his MBA in December of 2013 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, IL and his B.A. in English in 2005 from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. In addition to serving on the NCSA Board of Directors, Benjamin is a Trustee for the Ronald and Mary Ann Lachman Foundation, is on the advisory councils of both the Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School and the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville, IL, and is the founder of Cue Everything.

Email Ben

Marketing and Social Media: Vacant

Interested in becoming our Director of Marketing and Social Media? Contact Esther Rimer.

Acting Organizations Liaison: Kitri Kyllo

Kitri Larson Kyllo served 40 years in D/HH education, the last 26 years as Assistant Director of the D/HH Program in Intermediate School District 917, Minnesota. Prior to becoming an administrator, she worked at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf, was a certified Sign Language Interpreter, Teacher of Deaf/Hard of Hearing, and worked at Västanviks Folkhögskola for D/HH adults in Sweden. She led a team of professionals who demonstrated for 25 years that a public school program can provide a bilingual-access program for learners who are D/HH to acquire skills in both American Sign Language and English/literacy via spoken/cued English.

Kitri wrote an article in the Fall 2003 Odyssey magazine and the chapter, “A Bilingual (ASL and Cued American English) Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Theory to Practice” in the 2010 textbook, Cued Speech and Cued Language for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. The ISD 917 D/HH Program was also featured in a 2007 PBS Reading Rockets episode on literacy.

Kitri has provided countless presentations on the profound benefits of using Cued Speech at the local, state, and national levels.

Email Kitri

Outreach: Dr. Polly Earl

Polly has supported children and adults who are deaf and hard of hearing for the past 45 years, including work as a speech/language therapist, special education consultant, Cued Speech Instructor, Cued Speech consultant, and Adjunct Faculty teaching Language Development in the Exceptional Learner, Reading Strategies and Intervention, and American Sign Language at the University of Maine.

Dr. Earl had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Cornett speak about Cued Speech in 1978 at the University of Maine in Orono. She began to incorporate cueing into her speech and language sessions and saw how it helped her K-12 students more easily access and understand spoken languages. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Speech Pathology and Audiology with a minor in Foreign Language and a Masters in Deaf Education with a thesis on a Deaf adult with a right hemisphere lesion. Dr. Earl received a Doctorate in Education writing her dissertation on simultaneous bilingualism with cued languages. She studied a child from the age of 8-18 months with auditory neuropathy who was cued to by her mother in Dutch and by her father in Spanish. Her parents cued to each other in English. By the age of 4 years, the child was trilingual and age-appropriately speaking, understanding, and reading three languages. This was the first study of its kind in the world.

Polly supports the use of Cued Speech with children and adults to provide clear and consistent access to any spoken language. She has taught beginning and intermediate classes for Cued American English for the past 30 years. She is currently the President of the Cued Speech Association of New England. Dr. Earl is also Vice-President of Special Education for Polyscience Consulting serving as a Consulting Teacher of the Deaf providing cued language support to families and schools worldwide. Polly lives in Maine.

Email Polly

Representatives: Hilary Franklin

Hilary is a native cuer and proficient signer. She grew up attending Montgomery County, MD, public schools, home to a three-track deaf and hard-of-hearing program that includes Cued Speech. She earned her B.A. in Public Policy Analysis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.A. in Teaching American Sign Language as a Foreign Language from Teachers College (Columbia University). In 2005, she became the first deaf NCSA-certified instructor of Cued Speech. Since then, Hilary has taught multiple classes and workshops as well as presented at various conferences.

Hilary previously served on the NCSA Board from 2009–2010 as the Director of Marketing and Public Relations.

Hilary currently works for the Department of Defense and lives in the Washington, DC, metro area. She enjoys the performing arts and puns.

Email Hilary

Acting Website Director: Hilary Franklin

Interested in becoming our Website Director? Contact Esther Rimer.

Nicole Frye

Nicole has worked as a teacher of the deaf for 16+ years. She earned an A.A. in Interpreting, a B.A. in Deaf Education from MacMurray College, and an M.A. in Teacher Leadership from the University of Illinois. She is a certified instructor of Cued Speech and licensed sign language interpreter. She currently lives in Illinois with her husband and two children.

Email Nicole

Taylor Ozee

Taylor is a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing and previously taught at a residential school for the deaf for five years. She lives in Illinois with her husband and four children. Taylor earned her B.A. in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education from MacMurray College in 2013 and her M.A. in Education and Reading Specialist certification from Olivet Nazarene University in 2015.

Email Taylor

John Veazey

John Veazey is a native Cuer from Prairieville, Louisiana. He is profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant. After attending a pre-K Cued Speech program at LeBlanc Special Services, John was mainstreamed with a CLT until his junior year of high school. John graduated with a B.A. in History from Louisiana State University in 2010 and with a J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU in 2014.

John currently practices as an attorney licensed in Louisiana primarily in the areas of disability civil rights, estate planning, and successions. He continues to use a combination of CLTs and captioning to facilitate his work. In his spare time, John enjoys reading, herpetoculture, gardening, hiking, and kayaking.

Email John

Courtney Poole

Courtney is an adult native cuer in Locust, NC, just outside of Charlotte. She graduated from St. Andrews University with a B.A. in Business Administration with a concentration in Equine Studies. She currently works for BAYADA Home Health Care as a Manager for the Habilitation Practice.

She is also the Co-Director of Spring “Cue” Camp Cheerio and is involved with the North Carolina Cued Speech Association. In her spare time she enjoys riding and showing her horses, spending time with her family, and hiking with her dogs.

Email Courtney

Vacant

Interested in becoming a regional representative for the Midwest Region? Contact Hilary Franklin.

Suzanne Flint

Bio coming soon

Email Suzanne

Shareef Alwarasneh

Shareef has been cueing since his college years. After taking a few workshops on cueing, he began to practice cueing on his own. Also a fluent signer, he studied linguistics with particular emphasis in phonology and pragmatics. Shareef is now studying to become a nationally certified Cued Language Transliterator.

Email Shareef

Chett DeLong

Chett DeLong is a native cuer who has been part of the Cued Speech community for over 25 years. He used Cued Speech throughout his youth and has attended many Cue Camps on the east coast as both a camper and volunteer. He has contributed to building more exposure for Cued Speech through photography and videography projects. Chett grew up in North Carolina and obtained a bachelor’s degree at East Carolina University. He now resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Chett is honored to continue being part of the Cued Speech community and serving on the NCSA board as a co-representative of the Northeast region.

Email Chett

Holly Steinke

Holly has an A.A.S. in Interpreter Preparation from Front Range Community College in Colorado and a B.A. in American History with an emphasis in secondary education from the University of Northern Colorado.

She has been interpreting in for 25 years in education, freelance, and corporate settings and recently began her work as a CLT in 2012. In 2015, Holly became a certified instructor of Cued Speech and has been teaching students and families to cue in the Denver area. In her free time Holly enjoys kickboxing, reading, and spending time with family and friends.

Email Holly

Vacant

Interested in becoming a regional representative for the Midwest Region? Contact Hilary Franklin.

Jill Keblawi

Jill is the sister of a native deaf cuer. She has been cueing since she was 5 years old. Jill is currently an in-house lawyer with Marriott International, Inc. Jill was previously in private practice with law firms in Washington, D.C.

Jill received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Virginia, and a J.D. from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. Jill currently lives in The Woodlands, Texas, with her husband and three daughters.

Email Jill

Kitri Kyllo

Kitri Larson Kyllo served 40 years in D/HH education, the last 26 years as Assistant Director of the D/HH Program in Intermediate School District 917, Minnesota. Prior to becoming an administrator, she worked at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf, was a certified Sign Language Interpreter, Teacher of Deaf/Hard of Hearing, and worked at Västanviks Folkhögskola for D/HH adults in Sweden. She led a team of professionals who demonstrated for 25 years that a public school program can provide a bilingual-access program for learners who are D/HH to acquire skills in both American Sign Language and English/literacy via spoken/cued English.

Kitri wrote an article in the Fall 2003 Odyssey magazine and the chapter, “A Bilingual (ASL and Cued American English) Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Theory to Practice” in the 2010 textbook, Cued Speech and Cued Language for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. The ISD 917 D/HH Program was also featured in a 2007 PBS Reading Rockets episode on literacy.

Kitri has provided countless presentations on the profound benefits of using Cued Speech at the local, state, and national levels.

Email Kitri

Vance Deatherage

Vance began cueing in 2014 and has since become heavily involved in the cuemmunity. He has worked as a CLT in every stage of education, ranging from elementary through graduate/post-graduate level assignments.

After graduating with a B.S. in ASL-English Interpretation from NTID/RIT, he is currently working as an Advocate for the Deaf as well as a freelance Sign Language Interpreter and CLT in the Bay Area. Additionally, as a HoH cuer, Vance works to promote the use of Cued Speech as a solution to hearing loss later in life. He became a certified instructor of Cued Speech in 2015.

Email Vance