Professor Claudine Storbeck is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she leads undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Deaf Pedagogy, South African Sign Language, literacy, and Deaf culture.

She pioneered South Africa’s first professional teacher‐training program for Teachers of the Deaf, as well as the continent’s inaugural home‐based, family‐centred early intervention service for infants who are deaf or hard of hearing. She also played a central role in launching the National Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Programme.

The World Federation of the Deaf has appointed her a world specialist in Deaf Education, and she has served as a South African Sign Language interpreter at the presidential inaugurations of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. She is a Paul Harris Fellow, was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar (1995–96), and her Centre was designated a Centre of Excellence by the Department of Higher Education.

Dr Storbeck earned her PhD in Educational Linguistics, focusing on deafness and bilingualism, from the University of Johannesburg (formerly RAU) in 1998.