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contactHow our alumni are using their education in the real world
When our students go on to middle school, high school, college, and their careers, they achieve remarkable things in diverse fields. The education they receive at ISP instills a deep-rooted connection with language, culture, and learning, influencing their choices well into their future.
We are delighted to highlight some of their experiences after attending ISP:
Whitney Wagner ( Spanish ’08)
Whitney studied Mandarin in middle school at Oregon Episcopal School, and later learned Portuguese at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. As a senior at Pitzer, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to be an English language teaching assistant in Brazil.
“ISP was a profoundly transformational experience that has irrevocably shaped me into who I am today,” says Whitney. “The intercultural understanding I have from my years there is invaluable. I am able to approach everything I do from a place of curiosity.”
Whitney has spent time involved with the immigrants’ rights movement, worked in a day labor center in California, and answered phones for a D.C. detention center hotline that assisted asylum seekers.
Taylor Roghair (Spanish ’06)
Taylor attended Hosford Middle School and Cleveland High School, where she continued Spanish immersion. She later graduated from the University of Puget Sound with a double major in European History and Spanish Language and Culture.
Taylor returned to International School of Portland in 2019 as an assistant in our Early Childhood program, and is now attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York, working towards her master’s of fine art in Writing.
Ciara Williams (Spanish ’10)
After graduating from ISP’s Spanish track, Ciara went on to study Mandarin at West Sylvan Middle School and Lincoln High School, in addition to being part of the Spanish immersion program there. She graduated from Lincoln in the IB diploma program, and even wrote her extended essay entirely in Spanish.
Ciara graduated from Macalester College, where she was an NCAA athlete as a sprinter on the Macalester Women’s Track & Field team. During Ciara’s senior year of high school, she returned to ISP as a 4th grade classroom volunteer and also as a ISP Run Club assistant. Ciara enjoyed returning to ISP and “coming full circle,” helping out today’s little global citizens (and perhaps more future track stars!).
Sara Onitsuka (Japanese ’07)
“It wasn’t simply about language. Cultural education was a huge part of what I’m thankful for.”
Sara is quick to admit that they were certainly good at procrastinating when they were a student at Mt. Tabor Middle School and Grant High School. However, she points out: “My version of procrastination was doing a bunch of research and trying to decide what to do with my life.” That’s how they found neuroscience, which has continued to be a guiding force in their writing and studies.
As Sara began their studies in neuroscience at the College of Wooster, they did not shy away from difficult discussions about the intersection of science and social justice, and they continue to push for diversity in science.
“I want science to make the world a better place. We have that capability,” she says. As with many ISP alumni, Sara has embarked on language studies beyond their track language. While at Wooster, Sara studied abroad in Denmark and picked up some conversational Danish. They also studied Spanish for a year in college.
Prior to a move to attend graduate school, Sara was actively involved with organizations around Portland, including Art for Ourselves, Asians for Black Lives, the Arts and Media Project at Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, the radio show “Pacific Underground“ on KBOO, and the science and social justice organization Free Radicals.
Madeleine Adams (Mandarin ’08)
“[I aspire] to find more ways to connect engineering and problem solving with working across cultural boundaries, something I was well-prepared for thanks to ISP.”
Madeleine graduated from Oregon State University’s Honors College and works as a process engineer at Corning in New York. Her projects include working on glass vaccine vial production, as Corning vials include new technology that allows production speed to be increased – a key component in helping keep up demand of COVID-19 vaccines.
In college, Madeleine was a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) recipient from the National Science Foundation, and a prestigious Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Scholar from the American Chemical Society. Her REU summer program at the University of Notre Dame was Analytical Chemistry for the Developing World, working to develop a portable, inexpensive device to detect antibiotic resistance in low-resource settings, specifically developing countries. She got to use her Chinese there too; most of the electrical engineering department was from China and spoke primarily Mandarin.
Kilian Jones (Japanese ’10)
“ISP taught me to not be scared before I knew I was supposed to be scared!”
Kilian attended the University of Oregon as an Evans Scholar. As part of the application process, he was interviewed by a panel of school administrators. Kilian passed the interview with flying colors, and says he drew directly from his time speaking to larger audiences in elementary school at ISP. He also says the Capstone program helped prepare him for such a situation, because being thrown into a totally different culture for two weeks at 10 years old teaches you to deal with difficult situations.
Alexander Mackworth (Spanish ’12)
“My experience at ISP equipped me in ways more powerful than just speaking two languages. It prepared me for writing, public speaking, and empathy across cultural boundaries that have proved invaluable in my academic life and, more importantly, in my personal development.”
Before leaving Portland to study math, music, and philosophy at Stanford, Alexander graduated from high school at Catlin Gabel. He was part of the school robotics team, where he participated in the Robotic World Championship that won the Innovation in Controls award in 2016. Also in high school, he won first place in piano competitions for both Baroque and Romantic music. He was the first-ever high schooler to be offered a part-time paid internship at a local Portland software company during the school year, and he followed that up with hosting music and talk shows at local community radio station KBOO 90.7 to elevate marginalized voices.
Alexander stays connected with the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking cultures both through his maternal family and his personal passion for South American literature.
JinMei Merchant (Chinese ’10)
“I would not be as driven as I am if it weren’t for ISP. A second language makes you think, and the way language is taught here builds a good foundation as a student moving forward.”
JinMei’s favorite memory at ISP was the Capstone program. “It was so scary at first, but learning in a real Chinese school and just being there with my classmates and teachers was amazing.”
After ISP, JinMei attended Hosford Middle School and Cleveland High School, and participated in Portland Public Schools’ Chinese language immersion. Currently at Portland State University, she is continuing to study Chinese, including traditional Chinese, noting that the language foundation she gained in Chinese at ISP was evident during her freshman year at Portland State.
