Susan Schaller

Advocate for languageless deaf people

Susan Schaller, born in Wyoming, graduated from San José State University, and earned her Master’s degree in Public Health at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She first encountered ASL when she was 17, and says that it “changed her life.” Her work with languageless deaf adults inspired her first book, A Man Without Words. She also founded In the Name of Deaf Adults (naDA), a nonprofit organization promoting the language rights of Deaf people. With Yoon Lee, a Deaf videographer, she directed Vital-Signs, an educational program about the beauty of Deaf Culture and sign language that won an award of excellence in the 2002 Berkeley Film Festival. She has done international advocacy, and has just completed her second book, a collection of stories of children raised without language.