Dr. Carol A. Padden

Dr. Carol A. Padden served as a trustee from 1989 to 2003, including several years as vice chair.

Dr. Padden is professor of Communication and Interim Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to that she was Associate Dean and Faculty Equity Advisor in the Division of Social Sciences; and prior to that, Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor, then Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication.

She has written numerous academic and popular articles about sign language grammar, fingerspelling and comparative sign language structure across different sign languages. She is the co-author of two books on culture and community of deaf people in the United States and two ASL textbooks, A Basic Course in ASL and Learning ASL. Her work has been supported by the US Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

In 1992 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2010, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in recognition of her creative and innovative research.

Dr. Padden lives in San Diego.