Officer Biographies

Demetra Auel — a visual and instructional designer with a Masters in Applied Information Management and Bachelors in Mathematics. She recently studied video and sound production and has an extensive background in marketing and teaching multimedia and business applications. She has been the chair and vice chair of Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH and enjoys IA, organizational coordination and leadership; she currently works with the board and CG community by night, and creates effective web, print and graphic content by day.

Madison Russell — an avidly active member of the PDX animation community. As Vice Chair of Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH, board member of ASIFA Portland, and a juror and volunteer for the NW Animation Festival, she’s constantly looking for new ways to contribute. Madison’s great passion for Japanese animation and culture has led to conversational fluency in Japanese, as well as four months living and working in Tokyo, Japan during 2015. She is a freelance animator and illustrator with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and has a background in training facilitation and development. Animation, ink illustrations, and paper sculpture are her passions, and she loves combining all her skills to serve the local animation community.

Sophya Vidal — currently the Social Media manager of Cascade SIGGRAPH. She has degrees in both Media Arts and Animation, as well as Theater. Currently she is working on her own Animation Production Studio, as well as running a local animation resource group called ARCS. Social media and events promotion have long been aspects of her project-based work, and she is looking forward to putting those skills to work for SIGGRAPH.

Paul Anderson —  involved in multimedia since 1997 when he worked in school radio and did morning video announcements. After attending PCC’s video internship program, he worked as an independent videographer and editor; a few years later returning to PCC to study more in the multimedia department and eventually changing gears for toward web development. Paul produced and directed a handful of comedy skits and short films, several for weekend film festivals; he has also worked on a few feature films and web shows in various production roles. For the last few years, Paul has worked for a few web development houses in Portland and remotely, focusing primarily as a WordPress developer. He is currently learning Blender 3D, enhancing coding skills and developing a noir comedy.

Board-Member-at-Large Biographies

AJ Deflaminis — a long-time board member of Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH, AJ is the Visual FX Lead at Supergenius Studio, an Instructor at the Art Institute of Portland, and a 3D training contractor at 3DV. He has been the Rendering Lead of Liquid Development, at Modeling Instructor, and a Technical Director at Bent Image Lab for three and a half years. He has experience in every part of the CG pipeline and also has a small business making games for the iPhone and iTouch.

Sarah Deflaminis — received her Associate’s of Applied Sciences in Visual Communications from ITT Technical Institute in March 2010, and later went on to pursue a Bachelor’s of Science degree at the Art Institute of Portland. She graduated in September 2013 with a B.S. in Design Visualization. Since graduation from the Art Institute, she has been working as a Technical Director for Bent Image Lab. In her spare time, Sarah freelances as a Graphic Designer, mostly doing pro-bono work for local churches and schools.

Wes Cropper — developed a combination of skills for optimum productivity and creativity. Digital beginnings involved page and cover designs for print media. He became adept at applying principles of graphic design to the single two-dimensional page, and developed designs for web and video production, educational animation, three-dimensional animated textures, textured landscapes and scenery. The pursuit of working in 3D grew as he began teaching Autodesk Maya, Inventor, Adobe Photoshop, and AfterEffects. Learning these technologies for the classroom influenced the way he went about producing his own artwork.  His current body of work, “Portals and Meeting Places,” is a collection of digital landscapes representing journeys in progress or destinations already reached. They are locations of human process, movement, manifest for the purposes of growth, healing, knowledge, and shelter, represented as outdoor spaces, mountains, passages, bridges, doorways, spaces where interactions, transformations occur. Familiar experiences combined with extraordinary encounters draw viewers into realms of time, dimension, spirit, and nature. Wes freelances and teaches in the areas of drafting, design, and information technology.

Kendall Auel — a software development engineer with more than 35 years experience writing code. He began his career in the early days of 3D computer-aided design, developing interactive graphics systems for mechanical and electronic design automation. Most of his career has been focused on writing embedded control code for a variety of commercial products, including 3D computer graphics processors, digital projectors, HDTV systems, color printers and copiers for the office, graphics for live television production switchers, and most recently for 3D printers. He’s most excited by the way technology has become accessible to help create engaging and expressive works of art.

Jeffrey Sens — a co-founder and Co-Executive Director of Pixel Arts Game Education, he regularly leads “youth making games together” programs and trains volunteers, educators, and organizational leaders in maker-based learning and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math). Jeffrey taught at the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, and University of San Francisco. He earned a M.S. in Communications from the Ohio State University and pursued a doctorate in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He currently serves as a Youth-Adult Partnership facilitator for the Mythos Youth Council and community organizes with several collaboratives including Hive Cascadia, the N/NE STEAM Coalition, and the Portland Metro STEM Partnership Collaboratory.

Sven Bonnichsen — a visionary arts and culture activist. His focus: sustaining a robust Portland animation ecology. Current organizational roles include being founder/director of the Northwest Animation Festival (2010), President of ASIFA Portland (2012), Board Member at Large with Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH (2014), and Advisory Board member for Seattle-based Haptic Animation Amplifier (2015). He’s a bridge-builder who’s forged strong relationships with local studios, schools, freelancers, and indie artists — and routinely works with international animators around the world. During the past five years he has organized more than 100 screenings and animation-related events.

Christina Mayes — a Portland-based animation and design professional with an interest in bringing together the PDX and Southern Washington electronic arts communities in order to share knowledge and work. She possesses a love of teaching, creative expression and finds joy in enabling artists and designers to collaborate and network together. As an artist Christina has worked professionally in animation and design for eight years on hundreds of projects. In her free time she likes to garden, exercise and play video games.

Greg Walters — multimedia coordinator at the Portland Community College, Cascade Campus, has been serving the computer graphics community for many years. He also serves as the PCC Multimedia Club Advisor and has a passion for multimedia and great personal skills for helping people attain their goals. Greg has been an active member of Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH for the past 5 years and enjoys hosting meetings and events on a regular basis.

Fran Zandonella — actively involved in SIGGRAPH since 1993, Fran has served in a variety of leadership positions including Secretary, Treasurer, and Chair for local professional SIGGRAPH chapters. She has served as Secretary of the Cascade Chapter, as well as on the Board for three years. This past year she has assisted with meetings and maintained the events on the Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH website. Her goals include arranging for “kick-ass,” cutting-edge computer graphics speakers to visit Portland and to help the Board as needed to create a CG crucible.