Continuing Education Instructors

Melanie DeLeon, M.S., ASL,CI/CT, NAD IV, Court Certified Interpreter

Melanie has been an ASL interpreter for over 20 years in a variety of settings and countries.  Most recently, she has facilitated hundreds of hours of training on legal ethics for the Oregon Judicial Department as well as training judges, court staff and the court communities on language access and interpreting issues.  Melanie is also a council member for the Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Council on Health Care Interpreters.

Óscar Fernández, PhD, Qualified Spanish Healthcare Interpreter and Instructor at Portland State University.

Born in San José, Costa Rica, Dr. Fernández specializes in inter-American studies, literary theory, and the intersection of culture, sexuality, and representations of disease in literature. As a qualified medical interpreter, he gives voice—with knowledge and care—to Latinxs and Hispanics negotiating complex health-related issues.

With more than 15 years of university teaching experience in private and public institutions in Oregon, he has taught at Reed College and  Portland State University.  His teaching trajectory, in both English and  Spanish, has been delineated along four primary paths: (1) interdisciplinary and general education studies; (2) literary theory and  Comparative Literature studies, with an emphasis on Latin American literature; (3) Spanish language and Heritage-language pedagogy; (4) advanced rhetoric and composition in both English and Spanish