Board of Trustees

Alexis Kashar, President

Alexis is civil rights and special education attorney. She is a graduate of the University of Texas Law School. Alexis joined the Board of Trustees in 2008 and is currently the President of the Board. She is also the chair of the Civil Rights committee for the National Association for the Deaf. She is also active in her community in various civic and education organizations. Alexis lives in Scarsdale with her husband and their 3 children.

Jody C. Benard, Vice President

Jody graduated from the University of Rochester in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. She received her Juris Doctor from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1986 and is admitted to practice in both federal and state courts in New York and New Jersey. Jody has handled a multitude of matters in both New York and New Jersey. She currently is an Associate at Murphy Higgins & Schiavetta in New Rochelle NY. She lives in Westchester County with her three children.

Arnold L. Mintz

Retired as President and Chief Operating Officer and Board Member of Asset Alliance and subsidiaries and has held senior management positions in operations, administration, marketing and sales. Mr. Mintz is also Global Head of the Company’s investment placement business Hedge Harbor Inc. He serves on the Board of Directors of Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. Arnold joined NYSD’s Board of Trustees in 2003.

Steve Pennacchio

Steve is an attorney and CPA working in industry as Senior Vice President of Total Rewards for a large multi-national company. Steve joined the Board in 1998. Steve resides in Westchester with his wife, Marie, and their two children, Joe and Caroline.

Stephen F. (Steve) Weiner

Steve is the former Provost at Gallaudet University and became a Trustee in 2008. Steve is deaf and the son of deaf parents and attended Fanwood from 1964 to 1968. Besides being in higher education for most of his professional career, Dr. Weiner has been involved in the deaf and disability rights movement since the 1970s, promoting equal access for everyone. Steve and his wife, Dr. Tammy Weiner, a professor of Psychology, have two grown children who have flown the coop. They live in the “one traffic light,” town of Davidsonville, Maryland. Although Steve has lived in different parts of the country, Brooklyn will always be his home.

Linda Bove

Linda is a professional actor/ASL consultant for Theatre/TV/films and certified deaf interpreter. A founding member of the Deaf West Theatre, she lives in Phoenix, AZ with her husband, Ed Waterstreet, Founder and first Artistic Director of DWT( retired). She has been an active board member of NYSD since 1991. Her passion is about rights for deaf children in education and for traveling/exploring the world.

Tom L. Humphries, Ph.D

Dr. Humphries is an American academic, author, and lecturer on Deaf culture and communication. Humphries is a Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Humphries earned his Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Communication and Language Learning at Union Graduate School in 1977. Humphries is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the San Diego branch of the University of California. In addition to teaching at UCSD, he has been developing an experimental curriculum for teaching deaf children by applying bilingual teaching practices.
Humphries’ published writings encompass 43 works in 78 publications in 7 languages and 5,474 library holdings. His works are created with his wife and co-author, Carol Padden.

Dr. Raja Kushalnagar

Dr. Kushalnagar is a teacher, researcher and advocate for more inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing people in daily life through advances in accessible technology, human rights and legal policy. He is the Director of the Information Technology Program at Gallaudet University. He has a J.D. from Thurgood Marshall School of Law, an LL.M. in Intellectual property and Information Law from the University of Houston Law School, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, focused on accessible computing, from the University of Houston.

He has published over 30 papers and directed several grants related to accessible computing, human rights, disability law and intellectual property law. His findings in how people with sensory differences perceive and use devices and programs has led to design guidelines to make products more inclusive. For instance, deaf learners prefer few lines of speech-to-text (captions) in video lectures, while hearing learners prefer many lines of speech-to-text (transcript) next to the video lecture. He also advocates for updates in accessibility and intellectual property law to keep up with accessible computing advances, e.g., who owns captions obtained from automatic speech recognition.

Senator Suzi Oppenheimer

Senator Suzi Oppenheimer retired from the NYS Senate in 2013 after serving for 28 years, part of the time as Chair of the Senate Committee on Education. Prior to that she was Mayor of Mamaroneck for 8 years. Today Suzi serves on many philanthropic Boards committed to education policy, the environment and women/family issues.
She graduated with a BS from Connecticut College and an MBA from Columbia University. Suzi and her husband Martin have 4 children and 8 grandchildren. 16 members of their family are deaf. Suzi has been a NYSD trustee since 2013.

Clifford R. Rowley

Clifford graduated from Fanwood in 1960, was a research chemist until he retired in 2001 after 35 years with a chemical manufacturer in NJ. In 1991, he became the first Deaf alumnus to serve as a Trustee. After his retirement, he moved to Tucson, Arizona with his lovely wife Nancy, a former teacher at Fanwood. They have two children and three grandchildren.

Paul Scariano

Paul was born and grew up in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Xavier High School in NYC in 1990 and from the Manhattan College School of Engineering with a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1994. He is the founder and CEO of a NYC area public works construction organization, PJS Group, headquartered in New Rochelle, that employs over 200 people. He loves what he does because he feels it makes a difference in the world by building and improving infrastructure and facilities that help us move, communicate, have fun, and be safe.
Paul has been a Trustee at the NY School for the Deaf since October 2017, having come to learn about the school and its mission by randomly helping out with a mural project commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the School. He is a member of the Facilities committee where he hopes to help the school plan and make improvements and repairs most efficiently.
Paul has been a Trustee at Xavier High School since 2016, and has served on the Plant Committee for the past 4 years, which he has now chairs. He has been a career day presenter for the last 5 years, where he mentors students towards the field of engineering. He also Co-Chairs the Athletic Field Task Force.
Paul is an Advisor on the Manhattan College Council on Engineering Affairs, Chair of the Engineers’ Ball Committee, and Co-Chairs the Construction Industry Golf Outing Committee.
He is a Board Member, former Chair, Secretary, Governance and Nomination Committee Chair, and Flag Football Commissioner of All Yonkers Youth Athletics, Inc.; a non-profit youth sports organization supporting close to 800 families in the lower Westchester area.
Paul resides in lower Westchester with his wife Eileen, who is an amazing woman, spouse, and mother to their four terrifically complex and energetic boys.

Mario Torsiello

Mario Torsiello has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Torsiello Capital Advisors Inc. since 2001. He is an investment banker who specializes in mergers & acquisitions and capital markets' transactions. He has completed numerous sales, mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, private placement, debt and equity offerings (including leading many IPOs), among other advisory projects. His industry focus is on specialty insurance and reinsurance markets, alternative asset management, structured finance, and diversified financial services companies. He began his investment banking career at CitiGroup Capital Markets and its predecessor companies, leaving in 1999 as a Managing Director and Co-Head of the Insurance Practice so as to found his own business.

Mario graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Fordham College of Business Administration with a BS in Accounting. He greatly enjoys serving on the Board of his alma mater’s College of Business Administration and the Executive Committee of its President's Council, as well as fulfilling his role as a board member for the New York School for the Deaf. He is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New York and resides in Greenwich, Connecticut, with his wife Jennifer Grace. He has five children.

Sherri Turpin

Sherri a technology veteran, Turpin brings her leadership background and over 25+ years of experience in the telecommunications industry, specializing in Business Strategy & Development, Sales, Marketing, Operations and Customer Experience. Most recently, Turpin served as Channel Chief for EarthLink. Other former positions include Executive in Residence for Kinderhook Industries and for over a decade with XO Communications in varying management roles. Turpin has been awarded various honors for her leadership and innovation.

Eric Wagner

Eric is a financial advisor at UBS Financial Services Inc. He became a trustee in 2008 and is a graduate of Penn State University and Brooklyn Law School. Eric lives in Westchester with his wife, Kari, and his daughters Lily and Charlotte.