Clara Grebel is a native Spanish speaker, raised and educated in Argentina. She studied General and Latin American literature in the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, and graduated from the Instituto de Arte Cinematográfico de Avellaneda, Argentina, with a degree in Filmmaking (with strong emphasis in screenwriting). She has been teaching since 1998, and co-founded Castalia Language Center in 2007.
Outside of the classroom, Clara enjoys reading, watching movies and walking in beautiful Portland. She is a fan of public transportation and commutes by bus, MAX and streetcar.
Patricia Morrissey was born and raised in Peru. She has graduate degrees from both the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and the University of Rhode Island. She taught in Peru and in Mexico, and then taught Spanish and developed curriculum for over ten years at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon.
Patricia also volunteers with the Hispanic Council, a non-profit she co-founded in Clatsop County. Outside of the classroom, she enjoys reading, hiking and traveling.
Jessica Dover was born in North Carolina, and made her way to Portland three years ago after stops in Colorado, Michigan, and California. She spent several months in Yucatan, Mexico, where she lived with a family and studied Spanish intensively. Jessica received her Bachelor of Music in trumpet from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and has been a teacher and Spanish/English interpreter for over six years.
Jessica also produces and edits promotional videos and weblogs, and is currently working on a documentary highlighting Mayan women in the Yucatan. In her free time, she enjoys playing the piano, cooking (and eating!), yoga, movies, and traveling.
Stephanie Kreutter originally hails from Denver, Colorado, but has traveled to and lived in various places including Puebla, Mexico, Santa Clara, California, Quito, Ecuador, Cali and Bogota, Colombia, Montpellier, France, northern Spain, Istanbul, Turkey and Havana, Cuba. One of her favorite cities remains Portland, where she enjoys going to the cinema, being outdoors -either hiking, cycling or taking photos-, working in the darkroom and teaching español to adolescents and adults alike.
Stephanie has devoted much of her time as an adult to studying Spanish formally at Santa Clara University, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Portland State. This is currently her fifth year teaching.
