Jamie M. Bencak is a doctoral student at 番茄社区 University in Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. She is currently the program director and clinical faculty for the M.S. in Deaf Education program. Jamie earned her B.S. in Deaf Education from Illinois State University and her M.S. in Deaf Education at Texas Woman's University. She was a Deaf Education teacher for 17 years with experience in teaching Deaf and hard of hearing students in pre-kindergarten through high school. She has been rated as a distinguished teacher on the T-TESS in the last two school districts she has served as an educator (Humble ISD and Bryan ISD). She has been awarded as the recipient for Humble ISD Education Foundation grant in 2015 for technology use in the classroom, as well as Bryan ISD Education Foundation for curriculum use with Deaf and hard of hearing students in 2023. She was also recognized for exceptional service in education from Humble ISD. Her research interests include early literacy and language development of deaf and hard of hearing children, ASL/English bilingualism, and curriculum development and instruction in deaf education. Jamie is a Deaf ASL user who is married and has two young children. Some hobbies she enjoys in her spare time include arts and crafts, traveling, and camping.