Faculty
Andrew Godefroy
Lecturer
Andy Godefroy was born and raised in Seattle, WA. He graduated from Washington State University with a BA in History and in 2001 moved to Hawai’i to escape the ice and snow. He then got married (2003), had a daughter (2004), and went back to school (BA in English 2007 and MA in English 2009). In between the BA and the MA he added another daughter to the picture. Andy focused on literary studies but somehow managed to have creative writing courses with ALL of Manoa’s creative writing faculty. He generally researches Asian-American, Pacific, and popular literature with an eye for representation and identity. He loves to talk about anything and tries to read enough about everything so that he is never lost in a conversation. His latest challenge is reading YA books in order to keep up with his 12 year old daughter’s increasing voracious appetite for books.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2012
Courses taught: ENG 100 & ENG 200
Jordan Luz
Lecturer
Jordan Luz was born in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi but was raised in Waipahu. He earned his B.A. in Humanities with a concentration in English from UHWO in 2014 and took a year and a half off of school to figure out what he wanted to do. Eventually, he decided to attend UH Mānoa for graduate school and earned his M.A. degree in English with a concentration in Cultural Studies in Asia and the Pacific in the spring of 2018. He is currently an instructor of English at both UHM and UH West Oʻahu and teaches first-year writing courses. While his interests lie mainly in Cultural and Literary Studies, he has recently begun exploring creative writing as well (although not really good at it, as he will admit). But like all writing, it’s a work in progress.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Spring 2019
Courses taught: ENG 100T, ENG 200
Dr. Brenda Machosky
Professor of English
Office: E123
Phone: (808) 689-2346
machosky@hawaii.edu
Dr. Amy Nishimura
Professor of English
Amy Nishimura is Professor of English at the UH West Oʻahu. She serves as Coordinator for Professional Development and has served as Writing Coordinator. Teaching interests include Gender and Sexuality in Literature and Film, Contemporary Literature of Hawai`i, Composition Studies, Asian American Literature, 20th Century Women Writers, and Postcolonial Studies. Her current research involves a book project related to the Honouliuli Internment Site on the island of O‘ahu; specifically, she is researching why seven Japanese American Shinto Priestesses were interned and the militarized language used to incarcerate them. Prior publications focus on the work of Bharati Mukherjee, Gary Pak, Nora Keller, other Contemporary Writers of Hawai‘i, and Postcolonial Studies.
Office: D112
Phone: (808) 689-2347
amynn@hawaii.edu
Dr. Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo
Associate Professor of English
Born and raised near Düsseldorf in Germany, Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo has lived in Rome and New York City as well as on O‘ahu. She holds a BA in Literature from Hawai‘i Pacific University and attended the Comparative Literature program at CUNY Graduate Center before transferring to University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she received both her MA and PhD in English. Aside from having held academic positions, she has experience in the performing arts, translation, and language instruction. Nolte-Odhiambo is a polyglot: She is fluent in Italian as well as English and German, has studied French and Spanish, and completed graduate coursework in Latin and Old English.
Nolte-Odhiambo is the author of several book chapters and journal articles as well as the co-editor of Childhood and Pethood in Literature and Culture: New Perspectives in Childhood Studies and Animal Studies (Routledge, 2017). She regularly presents her research at conferences held by local, national, and international professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Studies Association (ASA), and the International Research Society on Children’s Literature (IRSCL). She is currently at work on a monograph – tentatively titled “The Child’s Time: Anthropogenesis, Asexuality, and Aetotemporality” – that critically examines the figure of the child across a range of literary and artistic representations.
Research interests: childhood studies; literature and literary theory; continental philosophy; queer theory, feminist theory, and gender studies; critical animal studies; performance studies; postcolonial theory; and Indigenous studies.
Office: D118
Phone: (808) 689-2345
cnolte@hawaii.edu
Faculty Profile Page
Dr. D. Nandi Odhiambo
Associate Professor of English
D. Nandi Odhiambo is the author of four novels: Smells Like Stars (Book*hug 2018), The Reverend’s Apprentice (Arsenal Pulp Press 2008), Kipligat’s Chance (Penguin Canada 2003, St. Martin’s Press 2004), and diss/ed banded nation (Polestar Press 1998). He is the recipient of the 2018 Elliot Cades Award for Literature and is Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawai’i–West O’ahu. His latest book, The Minoritarian and Black Reason; a Philosophico-Literary Investigation, is a work of literary criticism published by Lexington Books in 2021. Currently, he is working on his forthcoming novel, Amapiano Eyes, scheduled to be published by Book*hug Press in 2026.
Office: D117
Phone: (808) 689-2348
odhiambo@hawaii.edu
Faculty Profile Page
Website
Dr. Stanley Orr
Professor of English
Stanley Orr is Professor of English at UH West Oʻahu, where he teaches courses in writing, literature, and screen studies. Orr earned a B.A. in English at U.C. Riverside and a Ph.D. in English at UCLA. He has published a number of essays in critical anthologies as well as articles in journals such as American Quarterly and Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Orr’s book Darkly Perfect World: Colonial Adventure, Postmodernism, and American Noir was published with The Ohio State University Press in 2010. At present, Orr is conducting researching on the teleplays of Pasifika dramatist John Kneubuhl. In his latest publication—“‘Welcome to the Fabled South’: John Kneubuhl’s Global Southern Gothic, 1959-1966” (published in Small Screen Souths: Interrogating the Televisual Archive [Louisiana State UP, 2017])—, Orr analyzes a number of the episodes that Kneubuhl contributed to Adventures in Paradise, Thriller, and The Wild Wild West.
Office: D220
Phone: (808) 689-2349
sorr@hawaii.edu
Dr. Michael Pak
Assistant Professor of English
Writing Program Coordinator
Mike Pak is an Assistant Professor of English at UH West Oʻahu. He currently serves as Writing Program Coordinator. His research interests include composition pedagogy, rhetoric, ethnic American literature, critical theory, and popular culture. He was born and raised in Kāneʻohe, HI.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Spring 2020
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200, ENG 240, ENG 274, ENG 316, ENG 357, ENG 380, ENG/HPST 467, ENG/HPST 480, ENG 490, ENG 491, HUM 300
Office: D134
Phone: (808) 689-2390
pakm@hawaii.edu
Tiare Picard
Lecturer
Tiare Picard was born in Honolulu, Hawai‘i and received her PhD in English from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her poetry appears in End of the World Project, Shadowed Unheard Voices, Whetu Moana II, Tinfish 18.5: Poetry, Puzzles and Games. Her work has also appeared in journals published in Hawaiʻi, the continental US, and abroad. Tiare is a co-founder of and editor for Hoʻolana Publishing, a literary hui dedicated to the arts and literature in Hawai‘i. She is an instructor of English at UH West Oʻahu and lives with her mother and her two cats Lee Loo and Ripley, heroines of the science fiction universe.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2013
Courses taught: ENG 198, ENG 100T, ENG 100, ENG 200, ENG 273, ENG 312, ENG 313, ENG 317, ENG 412
Dr. Yasmine Romero
Associate Professor of English
My background is in applied linguistics, international education, genre studies, and cultural studies. I bring these fields into conversation in my research and classrooms; further, my experiences living in Saipan, Boise, Tokyo, and Seattle are always framing how I approach my relationship with my students.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2016
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200 (face-to-face and online)
Office: D133
yromer@hawaii.edu
Jade Sunouchi
Lecturer
Born in Honolulu, Jade Sunouchi earned a MA in English (focused on creative writing) and a MLISc from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her poems have appeared in Trout 14, Tinfish 20, Hawai‘i Review, and Vice-Versa.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2014
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200, ENG 220
Janine Midori Fujioka
Lecturer
Janine Midori Fujioka, a teacher, writer and calligraphic artist, is gosei, a fifth generation American of Japanese descent with roots in California and Hawaiʻi. She received the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Fellowship for Peace at Middlebury College, a National Endowment for the Humanities-Asian Studies Development Program Teaching Fellowship at the East-West Center of Hawaiʻi, a Freeman Foundation of Asia-Japan Studies Association Teaching Fellowship at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa among others. The Djerassi Resident Artists Program featured her work. Fujioka attended Scripps College, Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan), UCLA, Middlebury College, Bread Loaf School of English and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her essays, poetry and visual artwork have appeared or are forthcoming in Amerasia Journal, Bamboo Ridge Press, Rice Magazine, Tozai Times, Transpacific, Growing Up Asian American, Bread Loaf School of English Journal, AAPI Digital Textbook, other print and online Asian Pacific American media and elsewhere.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2022
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200, SP 151
Scott Nalani Kaʻalele
Lecturer
My name is Scott Nalani Kaʻalele and I was born and raised on Oʻahu, in beautiful Kāneʻohe on the windward side, and I currently reside in the Hawaiian Homelands division of Papakōlea. As a first-generation Native Hawaiian college graduate, I have found that a student-centered pedagogy based in a composition and rhetoric background has allowed me to engage a student population both diverse in age and background. My recent research endeavors consist of popular culture and literary studies, with a focus on comics studies, and a bit of Shakespeare for fun.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2021
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 100T
David Terada
Lecturer
Grew up in the received Kaimuki/Palolo area of Oahu. Lived in Japan for ten years where he taught English as a Foreign Language classes at companies, an interpreting school, a public high school, and at Waseda University. Returned home to teach ESL classes in Seattle (Immigrant Students) and at UH Manoa. Taught pre-college and college level composition for a number of years in the University of Hawaii community college system. Emphasizes a student-centered approach to teaching, critical thinking, and encourages self-directed learning. Research interests include error correction, online learning, pop-culture, and Pidgin/Creole English.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2022
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200
Rain Wright
Lecturer
Rain Wright received her Ph.D. in English with a focus on creative writing from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She currently teaches writing in the University of Hawaiʻi system. Rain won the Francis Davis Award for Undergraduate Teaching (2018) and the LLL Research Award for her dissertation (2018). She won the 2014 University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Biography Prize for her manuscript A Way With Water. Her dissertation received a nomination for the same prize in 2019. A recent acknowledgment of her work was winning the 2021 Fugue Journal Kim Barnes Prize for her short CNF story “Forgetting Nouns.” Barnes says, “Wright weaves a potent spell that magically ruptures the membrane between the inner self and outer world and cuts through our mortal sense of time.” Rain’s work has appeared in Hawai’i Review, Mud Season Review, Connotations Press: An Online Artifact, Madras Magazine, Summit Magazine, Hawaiʻi Pacific Review, Entropy Magazine, Dreamers, The Pinch Journal, After Happy Hour Journal, Arc Journal, Minerva Rising, Rising Phoenix Review, and Fugue Journal. Her book The Language of Mothers is forthcoming from Running Wild Press. Rain was the Creative Nonfiction Editor for Hawaiʻi Review (2014-2015) and is the current Fiction Editor for Antipodes Journal. Rain continues to write creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, inspired by her upbringing in Hōnaunau, and critical essays on trauma and life writing. She is busy working on her second book Breathwork, a memoir about her stepfather and his music. She is obsessed with the ocean, feeling it cures everything.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2021
Courses taught: ENG 200, ENG 273, ENG 313
Rhea Soifua
Lecturer
My name is Rhea Soifua. I grew up in Utah and after living in Australia for a few years completed my studies on Oʻahu where I earned my M.A. in English from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. My research focuses on ecocriticism and posthumanism in relation to Indigenous theory and Pasifika literature. I’m passionate about exploring how our connections to the environment and other beings can inspire new ways of living through the climate crisis. Drawing upon this background, my pedagogical approach aims to create a learning environment that encourages students to think critically about environmental and cultural issues. Outside of teaching, I enjoy spoiling my cats, Rainy and Po; hiking; and spending time with horses.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2024
Courses taught: ENG 100T
Melissa Johnson
Lecturer
Melissa began teaching English and Communication courses at the college level 25 years ago in Phoenix, Arizona. Since then, she has held various higher education and K-12 teaching and administrative roles in Arizona and Hawaii. Her specialty is teaching developmental writing courses for English Language Learners, yet also enjoys teaching research methods and linguistics. Most recently, she has taught at the University of Maui College and held administrative positions in special education at the DOE in Maui. Originally she is from Phoenix, yet lived in Maui for the past nine years. She relocated to Oahu in the spring of 2024 and looks forward to being a part of the English department at the University of Hawaii West Oahu campus.
Joined UH West Oʻahu cohort: Fall 2024
Courses taught: ENG 100, ENG 200, SP 151