Faculty
The past year has involved a faculty cohort of nine faculty across six different departments, eight of whom are from PCC and one from our sister school Clackamas Community College, as well as several other staff who have been supporting the project.
David Torres
Biography: Born in West Palm Beach, FL, David Torres is interested in the history of stories where the unseen forces of morality are at work. The PTSD factor embedded in culture has drawn David’s work to the idea of the “hero” as an empathic ideal for people to aspire to. David Torres is also interested in the illusion and delusional discussions that surround the complexities of the racial, sexual, religious, aging; old and young identities in culture. As a way of investigating these identities David Torres created “Riakman”, an alter ego, designed under the influences of 1990’s anime, video games, and his father’s middle school drawings. By channeling “Riakman”, David finds pathways through high art and popular culture. Through Riakman, David tells stories within his fictional planet “Runetech” about a way of being in the world. Exploring a narrative with an embedded nostalgia for the future is the illusion David Torres uses to contend with the disillusions that exist within culture.
Emmanuel Tachu
Biography: Emmanuel is an educator and engineering manager who strives to ensure that his students and team have the skills, tools, and resources to learn and get things done using data-driven techniques. He enjoys working one-on-one with students to understand their needs to help identify opportunities to provide the best support to meet their short and long-term academic and career goals. He continuously seeks opportunities to simplify and facilitate access to educational resources for his students and personal development.
Emmanuel uses part of his time to work with a global DevOps team responsible for building and maintaining pipelines and tools that drive deployment processes for the production and release of packages. His engineering leadership focuses on a balanced combination of people, technology, and processes for tackling complex and changing needs in fiercely competitive environments. His approach to problem-solving and providing solutions leverages a system approach focusing on efficiency, performance, quality, waste elimination, and continuous improvement.
Emmanuel holds a Ph.D. in information technology, a master’s in information technology management, a graduate certificate in engineering leadership and innovation management, and a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science. His dissertation focused on the relationship between information technology flexibility on-premise and cloud computing flexibility in enterprise environments. As a curious learner constantly investing in his intellectual capabilities, Emmanuel is currently studying for the Doctorate in Business Administration at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Because of his passion for information systems innovation, his research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and how information systems drive development and economic opportunity.
Melissa Manolas
Biography: Melissa is an educator, translator, and writer. She grew up on the East Coast in a multicultural and multilingual household, her parents having moved to the US in the late 60s from Brazil (mother from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and father from Athens, Greece and Brazil). She lived abroad for several years and in New Orleans for over 10 years before moving to Portland, where she has been teaching Film, Literature, and Writing courses at PCC for 17 years.
Her creative writing, scholarship, teachings, and translation have focused on the concept of liminality (“a transitory, in-between state or space, which is characterized by indeterminacy, ambiguity, hybridity, potential for subversion and change”) especially with regard to cultures, identities, languages, and spaces. She has a deep passion for science fiction/speculative fiction, genres which are particularly rich in narratives exploring liminality. What draws her to this AI research team is the opportunity to expand her knowledge of current AI/machine learning research and technology, and in turn find creative ways to use that knowledge to inform and inspire her equity work and teaching at PCC, as well as her social justice initiatives, both personal and professional. She is incredibly excited to strategize ways to use AI to catalyze student learning and experiences at PCC.
Station
Biography: Station is an artist, designer and educator currently working in Portland, Oregon. Their work spans fields such as instrument design, interactive installation, net art and experimental theater. With fellow PCC Creative Coding alum they founded whatever space, a Precipice Fund awarded project aimed at putting learning and teaching various skills in the realm of A/V art in the hands of more people. In 2020 they began the RACC funded project Open Cloud which sought to turn internet infrastructure into a means of collaboratively reimagining our mediated connections. With Nolan Thomas they have presented interactive work at local festivals, Pick-a-Thon and Winter Lights, that encourage both movement with and awareness of one another. Since they joined PCC as an instructor in 2019 they have worked on developing curriculum for seven new courses in Music and Sonic Arts including a new AAS award in Creative Coding and Immersive Technology. Station has been teaching Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the Arts at PCC since Spring 2020.
Lorena Alves Carvalho Nascimento
Biography: Lorena is an educator, working with geospatial technologies, environmental justice, environmental social governance, and data empowerment. Originally from Brazil, Lorena moved to Portland, OR to pursue a Ph.D. in Urban Studies. In her dissertation, she described the Western criminalization, acculturation, and cultural appropriation of Black and Indigenous values regarding cultural ecosystem services. Cultural ecosystem services include knowledge systems, spirituality, and recreation. As a geospatial instructor, she is looking for opportunities that include the use of AI for narratives of Afrofuturism and data storytelling applied to environmental justice.
Nicholas Insalata
Biography: Nick Insalata has been interested in puzzles and problem solving since his earliest years. One of his first memories is considering whether it was actually possible for it to ever be ‘opposite day.’ After receiving a BA in Mathematics from Reed College and a MS in Computer Science from Portland State University, he has been a professor of Computer Science at PCC since 2011. With this background, Nick has focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a variety of different ways. From analyzing the possibility of General AI in philosophy courses to the implementation of a neural network capable of reading handwritten characters, AI has formed a common thread throughout his educational career. More recently, Nick sat on the PCC AI Taskforce which analyzed how to incorporate AI curriculum into PCC’s programs. The investigations and reporting by this committee have enabled PCC to secure the federal grant that has funded the CAICC. In the classroom, Nick is interested in the challenge of making complex problems accessible, properly contextualized, interesting and fun to learners of all levels, and is looking forward to bringing his instructional approach to the extraordinarily exciting topic of AI.
Wilson Nitunga
Biography: Wilson began his career as a Social Media Coordinator working remotely for USAHello, an online platform providing resources for underserved communities.
His interest in Technology and Business earned him a space as a Digital Strategy & Social Media Manager where he learned about website management and page SEO.
From strategizing marketing campaigns to creating content, Wilson saw Technology as a tool for community engagement and bridging the gap facing underserved community. As the Director of Community Engagement, Wilson led the company’s business development and fundraising efforts and was tasked with the company’s newly launched app called FindHello in Portland, Oregon and across the country. Wilson conducts speaking engagement and consults for K-12 schools and colleges on student and community engagement matters, inclusive curriculum and student classroom experience. He has worked with companies to evaluate and enhance their community engagement practices, to close the opportunity gap between underserved communities and the workplace.
Today, Wilson is a business faculty at Portland Community College. As an avid user of technology, Wilson’s interest in Data Science with a special focus in recommendation systems has sparked a huge interest in Artificial Intelligence and web 3.0. Wilson believes Diversity and Inclusion is not fully practiced until students and employees are invited to the table as co-knowledge creators and not just willing participants of the status quo.
Juan Maldonado
Biography: Juan Maldonado (he/him) is a professor of Computer Information Systems at Portland Community College with over a quarter century of work experience in education, data analysis, website development, UI/UX design and process automation. He is a third generation Chicano originally from Paramount, CA and has made the Portland, OR metro area his home since 2001. Juan holds degrees in Website Design & Development and Applied Engineering from Clark College and Eastern Washington University, respectively.
In the classroom, Juan utilizes Case Method teaching; in short, everyone learns through work in projects, including the instructor. He uses his experience in industry to deconstruct and demystify coding and programming for adult learners to help onboard them into tech. As a member of PCC’s Center for AI & Cultural Computing, Juan hopes to explore business decision-making processes and ethics in artificial intelligence.
When Juan isn’t anxiously wrestling with writing professional biographies of himself in the third person, he enjoys a mug of strong French press coffee and the original nine season run of the Fuji TV show Iron Chef. Once in a while, his wife and two children will gently coax him out of his basement office with his passport in hand to travel. His favorite world city is Tokyo, with Mexico City a close second.
Carol Burnell
Biography: Carol Burnell (she/her) joined the English department at Clackamas Community College in 2004 and has taught English literature and composition since 1998. She holds an MA in English from Portland State University, a BA in English from San Francisco State University, and attended Umpqua Community College in the ‘80s. Professional interests include medieval literature, speculative fiction, mythology, queer studies, writing centers, and composition. Her interest in AI is focused on culture and ethics. Carol teaches all levels of composition; Greek and Celtic mythology and Arthurian literature; science fiction; and introductory literature courses in fiction and poetry. In her classes, Carol incorporates universal design, project-based learning, and provides feedback via one-to-one meetings. She has collaborated on multiple projects at Clackamas: Guided Pathways project co-manager, Learning Center design co-chair, Excellence in Teaching and Learning Team co-chair, Learning Center co-coordinator, and co-author of The Word on College Reading and Writing, a writing OER, with four colleagues.