New Innovation Minor Director Announced: Salvador Orara

June 28, 2019

The University’s new campus-wide minor in innovation will be led by Salvador Orara, who will be hired as a Franz Center professor of practice and housed in the Shiley School of Engineering, according Shiley School dean Sharon Jones. Orara has a BFA in graphic design and a MFA in media design. His experience includes numerous UX (user experience design) roles including Jaguar Land Rover. He also has considerable teaching experience, most recently with Pacific Northwest College of Art. He is currently the AIGA Portland Chapter president (the professional association for design). Orara will begin in his new position on Thursday, August 15.

Orara’s new position is part of UP’s push to increase cross-disciplinary learning. Matthew Kuhn, incoming interim dean, says “Sal will add a new aspect to our students’ learning, by building upon their expertise and developing an interdisciplinary innovation mindset to solving complex problems that involve the human and societal dimensions.”

The new innovation minor will be offered campus wide and will be housed in the Shiley School of Engineering. Classes offered through the innovation minor include “Introduction to Design and Innovation,” “Sketching and Prototyping,” and “Empathy, Observational Research and Human-Centered Design.”

For more information contact the Shiley School at x7292 or engineering@up.edu.

James Peña, residence life, was honored with the 2020 New Professional Award from the Northwest Association of College and University Housing Officers. The award celebrates James’ contributions to Residence Life, the campus community, and the student affairs/residence life profession outside of UP.

Jakob Kotas, mathematics, had his article, “Atmospheric CO2,” Systemic Initiative for Modeling Investigations and Opportunities with Differential Equations” published by SIMIODE, an education community where modeling comes first in teaching differential equations, in January 2020.

Martin Cenek, Shiley School of Engineering, had his article, “‘One Size Does Not Fit All’: A Roadmap of Purpose-Driven Mixed-Method Pathways for Sensitivity Analysis of Agent-Based Models” (with coauthors Arika Ligmann-Zielinska, Peer-Olaf Siebers, Nick Maglioccia, Dawn Parker, Volker Grimm, Eric Jing Du, Nazia Arbab, Uta Berger, Rajiv Paudel, Derek Robinson, Piotr Jankowski, Li An, Xinyue Ye, and student coauthor Viktoriia Radchuk) published in Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 23 (1) 6. January 2020.

Bob Butler, environmental studies emeritus, Jenda Johnson, Earth Sciences Animated, and Wendy Bohon, IRIS education specialist, published “Haiti 2010 – 10 Years Later,” an animation feature which explores plate tectonics, earthquake damage, and rebuilding efforts after the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010. Animation can be found on the IRIS website at this link or on YouTube at this link.

Christina Ivler, Shiley School of Engineering, had her presentation, “Development and Simulation of Damage Tolerant Control Laws for a Compound Helicopter,” (with Joe Horn, Eric Johnson) published in Proceedings of the AIAA SciTech Conference, Orlando, FL, January 2020. She presented “Development and Flight Validation of Unmanned Aerial System Handling Qualities Requirements for Multicopters” (with Declan Kerwin, Kevin Truong, Joel Otomize) at the same conference.

Simon Aihiokhai, theology, presented “Solitude, Identity, and Vocation” at the University of Portland’s spring semester retreat for resident assistants on January 9, 2020. He presented “Christian Identity as an Invitation to Become the Medium of God’s Life in the World: In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” a reflection given at the 2020 MLK Celebration Mass at Saint Andrew Parish, Northeast Portland, OR, on January 12, 2020.

Matthew Kuhn, Shiley School of Engineering, had his article, “Linear-frictional contact model for 3D discrete element simulations of granular systems” (with coauthors Ali Daouadji, Kiichi Suzuki) published in International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 2020, volume 121, No. 3, pp. 560-569. DOI 10.1002/nme.6216 (February 2020).

Aziz Inan, Shiley School of Engineering, had his piece, “My View: Franklin’s life a nice piece of Pi,” published in the January 17, 2020 edition of the Portland Tribune. See the article using this link.

Nicole Hanig, performing and fine arts, performed a recital (“Social Justice in Art Song”) with pianist Susan McDaniel as part of the Twilight Concerts at the Cathedral series in Limerick, Ireland on January 17, 2020. She also offered a Master Class in voice practice on January 18.

Jane Scott, library, and Susan Stillwell, nursing, had their article, “Sensitive Versus Specific Search Strategy to Answer Clinical Questions,” published in Journal of Nursing Education, 59(1), 22-25.