Samond Bishara hails from Deaf family in California.  He has been with VRS Interpreting Institute since 2010 as a faculty.  He is certified as a deaf interpreter since 2016 and has worked as freelance and deaf video interpreter.  His hobby is making a sushi.

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Stephanie Mathis, a Southern California native, is the executive director of Sego Lily Center for the Abused Deaf (SLCAD) in Salt Lake City, Utah. She worked for SLCAD for 10 years and enjoys working with people who are passionate about keeping the Deaf Community safe. She graduated from Gallaudet University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling with an Associate Clinical Mental Health Counseling license and is a Certified Deaf Interpreter and a court approved interpreter in the state of Utah. Not only does Stephanie work with survivors of abuse, but much of her time is spent on training service providers such as interpreters, law enforcement agencies, mental health counselors, lawyers, and domestic violence shelter staff to provide accessible and effective services to Deaf survivors of abuse. She has other passions: her family (3 sons, one daughter, a loving husband) AND dancing.  Stephanie is a certified Zumba Instructor who’s outlook on life is much like the Leann’s Womack’s song “When you have the choice to sit it out or dance…I hope you DANCE!”

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Betsy has been interpreting for 13 years.  For most of her career, she has worked primarily in higher education, but approximately three years ago started VRS interpreting at Purple Communications and rapidly grew to love the people at Purple and the nature of VRS work.  She now has the great opportunity to lead the Purple Communications team in Sandy as the Center Manager.  She is the mother of two wild/sweet children, ages 9 and 7.

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Jed Patton is a dynamic personality with interests in a variety of areas which allow him to bring perspective and understating to his learning environment. He currently serves as Director of the Salt Lake City Sorenson Communication VRS center. While raising a brood of children, and with the support of his spouse, Jed has completed two Masters degrees: he holds a Masters of Business Administration and Masters of Fine Arts, Visual Development. He also maintains his NIC interpreting credentials from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, and has been professionally interpreting for 18 years. Jed spent many years in the classroom teaching at Boise State University and worked on developing an ASL curriculum used in the Idaho prep-schools. Jed currently resides in a blossoming city nestled next to Utah Lake with his lovely spouse and six children.

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Originally from Brazil, where she holds a B.S. in Physical Therapy and completed a residency in Oncology. She just completed her M.s. in Health Promotion and Education from the University of Utah, where she works as a Clinical Research Coordinator. She first heard of the Resilience Model during the first year of her Master’s program. She felt an instant connection and was able to combine all her passions to create a Resilience Training Program for Smoke Cessation for Women with Cancer. This lead to a greater understanding of previous events in her life and the creation of a Resilience Training for Women, and now applying the concepts to interpreters and the work they do.

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Pamela Mower was born deaf and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. She earned her degrees (Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies) and (Master of Science in Administration and Supervision) from Gallaudet University. She has 15 years of experience working with Deaf and Hard of Hearing job seekers, educating employers on accommodations for the Deaf and hard of hearing along with encouraging them to hire more Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She worked at Gallaudet University for over 10 years as an Employer Specialist in the Career Center before working at Sorenson VRS in the Marketing Department as a studio producer in Utah. In May 2013, Pamela started working at the Division of services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (also known as Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) as a statewide Employment Specialist. She also serves on various boards in the Deaf community such as Utah Association of the Deaf, Wheeler Scholarship and more.

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Dawn Duran is a RID NIC Advanced, SC:L and Utah State Professionally Certified Interpreter.  She hails from Ga, but came to Utah and earned her B.S. in Human Development focusing on Language Development from Brigham Young University.  There she met Deaf friends and found out that if you are the only hearing person in a group of friends, you better learn to interpret! She has been interpreting since Jan. 1990 and in those 26+ years has interpreted in almost every setting she can think of but specializes in interpreting for legal situations as well as for victims or abuse.  She currently works full-time as the Vice President of Marketing & Relationships for ASL Communications, and absolutely loves it! She is also a member of the RID Professional Development Committee (PDC).

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Teddi von Pingel is currently enrolled in the Ed.D. Program in Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University. As a doctoral student, she has engaged in preliminary cycles of research to collect data on the interactions between ASL/English interpreters and Deaf consumers prior to medical appointments. The data collected will shed some light on perceptions of both Deaf consumers and ASL/English interpreters related to the ‘first impressions’ prior to any appointment. The presentation will highlight themes found in the research and provide participants an opportunity to share their own experiences as interpreters or consumers in a medical setting. Together, the participants will brainstorm solutions to common issues faced when meeting a client/interpreter prior to a medical appointment. The presenter will share narratives from past research participants on their ideas about improving ‘first impressions’.

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Billy Krahl began involving in the world of interpreting back in 1980’s, first being a part of Hand Harmony, a group of interpreters signing songs in different venues and then as an evaluator of Quality Assurance Screening to evaluate the skills of apprentice interpreters and provide feedback for further skills development.  And finally, as obtained Reverse Skills Certificate (RSC) which back then was equivalent to current Certificate Deaf Interpreter (CDI).

A man of many talents, Billy began a professional mime performer in Florida in 1979, known as Kiko the Mime.  He continues to performs mime.

He was Master of Ceremonies for the the Miss Deaf Virginia pageant in 1987 where Charity (Reedy) Hines was crowned.

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