Happy Birthday, Sandra Mae Frank!

The deaf actress is best known for the role she played on the NBC show New Amsterdam, oncologist Elizabeth Wilder.

Family: She was born on March 31, 1990 in Louisville, Kentucky to William and Kim Frank. She has a brother named Jasper Frank and a sister named Anne-Marie Frank. She presently lives in Austin, Texas with her cat and boyfriend Julian, who is a videographer. She identifies as pansexual.

Hearing: Sandra Mae Frank was born premature and slowly lost her hearing until she was deaf at the age of three.

Education: Louisville Deaf Oral School, now known as Heuser Hearing Institute and Learning Academy and duPont Manual High School. She went on to Gallaudet University, where she studied Theatre Arts for the deaf, graduating in 2013. She had planned to become a teacher but a professor encouraged her to pursue acting so she double-majored.

Theater: She made her Broadway debut in 2015 when she starred in Deaf West Theatre's production of Spring Awakening.

Television: Her first TV appearance was on the show Beautiful Sounds of Love in 2013. She played Abigal in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, appeared on Switched at Birth and was a guest on the children's television show The Wiggles. In 2022 she performed the National Anthem in ASL during Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. She now plays Dr. Wilder on NBC's New Amsterdam. Actor Conner Marx plays her interpreter on the doctor drama.

Movies: She has appeared in Soul to Keep, Sound of Fear and Seasons of Love.

Quotes: She told the Emmy's: that she is like the character she plays on New Amsterdam: "She is used to breaking boundaries, breaking through. In so many ways, she's the type of character I would want to be. Her boldness, her ability to navigate through the world as a Deaf person, a queer person. There are a lot of parallels between me and my character."

Here's an interview Frank did for the sci-fi drama Multiverse.