The 16th stamp in the Distinguished Americans series honors Robert Panara (1920-2014), an influential teacher and a pioneer in the field of deaf studies. Panara grew up to become a preeminent scholar in the field of deaf studies, a writer and poet, and a noted professor at institutions including Gallaudet University in Washington and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Rochester, NY.

Growing up in Depression-era New York, he received few of the services or accommodations available today for deaf or hearing-impaired students. Because he had post-lingual deafness — the loss of hearing after the acquisition of language — he was able to communicate through lip-reading and spoken English and continued his education in mainstream public classrooms.

He learned sign language after high school and pursued higher education at what was then Gallaudet College. Literature — his passion since he lost his hearing — became the focus of his study.

Panara taught for nearly two decades at Gallaudet before becoming the first deaf professor at NTID, which was established by an act of Congress in 1965 and is part of the Rochester Institute of Technology. A Shakespearean scholar, Panara started the institute’s drama program and taught classes in literature and creative interpretation through sign language.

Beginning in the 1970s, he wrote articles and books that helped establish deaf studies as a formal line of academic inquiry. The field “helped to open doors and open minds,” his biographer and friend, Harry G. Lang, wrote in an e-mail. “People realized that deaf persons had been contributing in meaningful ways for centuries, and young deaf people should be given the chance.”

Panara articulated through poetry his experience of deafness. Among his most noted poems was On His Deafness, written in 1946: “My ears are deaf, and yet I seem to hear.”