Patrick "Pax" McCarthy joined UNH Manchester in 2005 as the Assistant Director of the Sign Language Interpretation Program and Lecturer of American Sign Language.  He is a proud American Sign Language (ASL) native user. He attended Maryland School for the Deaf. In 1979, he had earned a BA degree in Psychology from Gallaudet University at Washington, DC., and M.S. degree in Deaf Education from McDaniel College (formerly known as Western Maryland College) at Westminster, Maryland in 1985.

At the wake of ASL recognizance as an actual language by bona-fide linguists during 1970’s, Pax took numerous professional development training, courses, and workshops on ASL Linguistics, ASL Teaching Methodologies, Materials and Methods, Curriculum Design, and Evaluation (testing), mostly at national and local chapters of American Sign Language Teachers Association (ASLTA). He also taught at various community colleges in Maryland and Massachusetts, in addition to teaching English as Second Language at The Learning Center for Deaf Children, in Framingham, Massachusetts; and also at Allston’s DEAF Incorporated’s Evening Deaf Adult Education Program.

A community activitist, Patrick co-founded a local Boston Deaf Theatre, known as Show of Hands Theatre Company (SOHTC), and has been active in various capacities. Beside SOHTC, he consulted sign language interpreters with translation in various professional theatres’ plays in Boston, such as Les Miserables, Les Liasiones Dangerouses, Anne Frank, The Blue Demon, and many others.

Pax can speak to the media about deaf/ ASL culture and community; ADA law for equal communication accessibility, deaf role models and their success stories, and storytelling for the deaf in ASL.