The NCSA is run by an elected board of officers, directors, and regional representatives. Board Officers and Directors serve a three-year term in each position and may not exceed two terms in any one position. Regional Representatives do not have term limits.
The Board is governed by bylaws [PDF]. We also strive for transparency. View our annual and financial reports.
Please feel free to contact any of us for more information about Cued Speech or the NCSA, as well as information about local support in your area.
Officers
President: Amy Ruberl
Amy Ruberl has been involved with cued language at both regional and national levels since 1987. She has previously served the NCSA as chair of the Instructor Certification Committee, Executive Director, Director of Programs (initiating workshops and camps across the United States), and Regional Director for the Capital area (MD, DC, VA, WV). Amy was the director and assistant director of CueCamp Friendship in Maryland for many years and was the first president of the Maryland Cued Speech Association. Amy worked as a communication specialist and teacher for Montgomery County Public Schools’ Programs for students who are deaf and hard of hearing working with signing, cueing, and oral students for ten years. She earned a master’s in education of the deaf from Smith College and a bachelor of science in elementary education from Bucknell University.
1st Vice President of Outreach: Shanna Sorrells
Shanna is a native deaf cuer and signer, senior manager of Access & Inclusion at Imagination Stage, and the first ever Director of Artistic Cued Language at the Kennedy Center.
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2nd Vice President of Fundraising: Maureen Bellamy
Maureen Bellamy lives in Fairfax, Virginia, and is the mother of an adult deaf native cuer. She is a past president and current vice president of the Northern Virginia Cued Speech Association (NVCSA) and has served as a Director of Cue Camp Virginia since 2003. She served on the NCSA Board as the Organizational Outreach Director during the 2023-2026 term.
Maureen has a B.A. in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.P.A (Public Administration) from Troy University. She is retired from military service as an aviator and aviation support facility supervisor for the U.S. Army and the District of Columbia National Guard.
Maureen is an NCSA Instructor of Cued Speech and currently works part time as a Cued Language Transliterator in her local school system.
Treasurer: 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.
Secretary: Cindy Ruthenberg
Cindy Ruthenberg became involved with Cued Language in 1999 after learning that her young daughter had a progressive hearing loss. She has volunteered with the Northern Virginia Cued Speech Association and Cue Camp Virginia for many years. Cindy is a retired kindergarten and special education teacher with 38 years of classroom experience, including six years in San Diego, two years in Maryland, and 30 years with Fairfax County Public Schools. She earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from James Madison University, a master’s degree in special education from the University of San Diego, and an endorsement in teaching English as a second language from the University of Virginia.
Directors
Academic Outreach: Judy Kegl
Judy has her PhD in linguistics from MIT and is the former director for the Linguistics/Interpreting department at University of Southern Maine. She is recently retired from that position but continues to teach and do/oversee research at USM and has stayed involved in deaf and interpreting organizations. She has been very supportive of growing the awareness of cued language and training for CLTs in Maine.
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Legislative Activities: Esther Rimer
Esther Rimer, a native adult cuer, was elected to lead the NCSA Board of Directors for the 2020-2023 term and was re-elected President for the 2023-2026 term. She is currently serving as the Legislative Activities Director for the 2026-2029 term.
Esther Rimer previously served on the NCSA Board of Directors in 2008–2010. She 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.
Organizational Outreach: Hilary Franklin
Hilary is a native cuer and proficient signer. 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 American English. Since then, Hilary has taught multiple classes and workshops as well as presented at various conferences.
Hilary previously served on the NCSA Board from 2023-2026 as the 1st Vice President of Outreach, 2020-2023 as the Director of Regional Representatives, and from 2009–2010 as the Director of Marketing and Public Relations.
Hilary currently works for the federal government and lives in the Washington, DC, metro area. She enjoys the performing arts and puns.
Regional Representatives
The NCSA has six regions: East, Midwest, Northeast, Rockies, South, and West.
East (Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, DC)
Email the East Region Representatives
Stacy Noble (South Carolina)
Stacy Noble is a proud mom of four amazing children! She is a special education teacher in South Carolina, and a passionate advocate for Deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families. When her third child was born deaf in his right ear, discovering Cued Speech at age eight became a journey for the entire family—everyone learned to cue, creating a shared language and connection that continues to shape their lives. She proudly serves on the National Cued Speech Association Board and the Spring Camp Cheerio Board. A few fun facts: she holds her family’s highest bungee jump record at 440 feet and completed her student teaching in beautiful New Zealand!
Christine Millett (Virginia)
Christine Millett first learned about Cued Speech in 2002 after learning that her daughter was slowly losing her hearing. She quickly learned how to cue and has attended Cue Camp Virginia for many years, eventually teaching the children’s cued speech classes there. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the Eastman School of Music and a Master’s in Education in School Librarianship from Longwood University.
Midwest (Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin):
Email the Midwest Region Representatives
Jaemi Hagen (Minnesota)
Jaemi is a native deaf cuer and signer, has a masters in social work from Gallaudet, and has just returned to their home state of Minnesota.
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Northeast (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont):
Email the Northeast Region Representatives
Polly Earl (Maine)
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.
Elizabeth Seal (New York)
Elizabeth Seal is a native deaf cuer and signer, mother of 4 deaf children who cue and sign, former president of Maine Hands & Voices, and current ToD at Rochester School for the Deaf.
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Rockies (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming):
Email the Rockies Region Representatives
Holly Steinke (Colorado)
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.
South (Arizona, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, and Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands):
Email the South Region Representatives
John Veazey (Louisiana)
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.
West (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington State, and Guam, American Samoa, & the Northern Mariana Islands)
Email the West Region Representatives
Vacant
Interested in becoming a regional representative for the West Region? Contact Sara Sizemore.
