Modern Languages Department Faculty
Cate’s modern language instructors have lived and studied around the world learning their language craft.
The grammar, conversation, and culture of the languages they teach and love will elevate your connection to other worlds.
Modern Languages Department Chair
French Instructor
mamadou_pouye@cate.org / 805-684-8409 x282
MA, Universite Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Senegal)
Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA)
Appointed: 2006
Mamadou Pouye is a French teacher from Senegal, West Africa. He graduated from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Senegal) with a Master’s Degree and holds the postgraduate degree of Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA). After his graduation he went to Ecole Eormale Superieure de Dakar for a two-year teacher training course. He was selected in the Fulbright program after teaching for one year to study at Northern Arizona University. He has taught extensively in Senegalese public and private schools.
Mamadou Pouye holds a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo and a brown belt in Shotokan Karate. He also plays the African drums.
Spanish Instructor
nuria_causera@cate.org / 805-6844127 x116
BA, University of Valencia
MAT, Valencian International University
Appointed: 2021
Nuria Causera joins the Cate community as a Spanish Instructor following eight years at Marymount of Santa Barbara where she also served as the Community Service Coordinator. A native of Valencia, Spain, Nuria earned her English degree from the University of Valencia and traveled to the United States for the first time in 2007 while studying abroad at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. After completing her master’s in teaching a second language from the Valencian International University, and completing a course on methodology of teaching Spanish as a second language from the Cervantes Institute, Nuria moved to Santa Barbara in 2012 and has been here ever since.
She is looking forward to becoming a part of the community on the Mesa and motivating new learners to love Spanish.
If you see Nuria around and want to get her attention, simply mention avocados, hummingbirds, Rusty’s Pizza, or Bob’s Burgers!
Spanish Instructor
Monica_Garcia@cate.org / 805-6844127 x243
BA, Universidad Catolica Santa Maria, Arequipa, Peru
MA, University of California, Santa Barbara
She first came to teach Spanish in the United States at St. Timothy’s School in Stevenson, Maryland, where she was awarded the Olson Faculty Award for Outstanding Contribution to the School and Distinguished Teaching. In 2002, she moved with her husband and fellow Spanish teacher, Oscar Urizar, to begin teaching at Cate. What she likes best about working here is that teachers and students really get to know each other as people. The relationships that emerge go beyond the typical teacher and student connection.
Monica sees important ties between what happens in the foreign language classroom and a student’s success across the curriculum. Learning a language is much more than just learning grammar and vocabulary. It involves exposure to the richness of other cultures, idiosyncrasies, and being transported to new worlds of experiences through literature. There is so much to discover and to be connected with what students already know or are learning in other classes. Beside that, students need to be curious, recognize patterns, make connections, take intellectual risks, question, exchange ideas, discover, be creative, and feel challenged. The more practice they have on those skills, the better they get as scholars.
She received her Masters in Spanish Language, Literature and Culture from UC Santa Barbara in 2005.
Japanese Instructor
Ichiko_Kido@cate.org
Ichiko was born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan, where she eventually received a bachelor’s degree in law and teaching credentials at the junior and high school levels. Her passion had always been teaching, but she strayed away from it for 17 years and built her career as a public utility rate financial consultant. During that time, she went back to school at night to advance her career in finance while raising her two daughters as a single mom and keeping her full-time job. She obtained her MBA at Martin V. Smith School of Business & Economics at Channel Islands in 2015.
Her kids are now grown and out of the house. So she decided to return to her first passion of teaching with the hope of finishing her career someday as a teacher.
She travels to Japan twice or three times a year to see her family and best friends. She is on a mission to find the best ramen place in Japan to take her students one day soon.
Chinese Instructor
Ge Song teaches Mandarin at all levels at Cate. She was born and raised in Northeast China and attended Chinese boarding school. She went on to study Chinese Language and Literature in college and earned a master’s degree in teaching Chinese to non-native speakers at Beijing Normal University. In the seven years that she spent in the program, she fell in love with teaching, linguistics, and cultures.
Ge began her journey teaching Mandarin in Thailand before moving on to the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. It was there that Ge first fell in love with boarding school life. After that, she went back to China to teach at Dulwich College, Shanghai Pudong. While living in an environment where everyone speaks her first language can be comfortable, she truly missed the connections that are a part of boarding school life in the U.S. Ge then came back to the U.S. and taught at Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut.
She lives in Parsonage on the Mesa with her husband and their dog, Maple. She loves learning about people’s culture, cooking, and going to the beach.
Spanish Instructor
BA, Colorado College
Appointed: 2019
Attending Cate as a member of the class of ’14, Ben first found his passion for Spanish while working in the school’s Grounds department over the summer, and developed it in the classrooms of Schoolhouse. His enthusiasm for language and education took him to Colorado College where he majored in Spanish while co-chairing an after-school program for local children to learn a second language.
Ben is enthusiastic to be back on the Mesa, teaching Spanish in the same classrooms where he found his passion for language. Ben is excited to be a part of the new memories that Cate students make by filling the role of a teacher, coach of ultimate frisbee, soccer, baseball, and a dorm parent in Cook House West.
Spanish Instructor
oscar_urizar@cate.org / 805-684-8409 x243
BA, Accounting and Computer Science, Universidad Católica SM, Perú
MA, Management and Strategic Marketing, Universidad del Pacífico SDM, Perú
MA, Spanish Literature and Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara
Appointed: 2004
Hailing from Peru, Oscar Urízar was shaped by his rigorous secondary education at a military boarding school in his homeland. His studies then blossomed across diverse fields, including the Fine Arts, exploring the mysteries of the human form, delving into the realms of Literature and Philosophy, and attaining a bachelor’s degree in Accounting. Prior to embarking on his vocation in Education in the United States, Oscar garnered invaluable professional experience in Peru across the domains of marketing, finance, economics, and public relations.
With over 25 years of experience as an educator and leader, he is a tireless advocate for equal education and is deeply committed to diversity, access, equity, and inclusion. Above all else, Oscar believes that we are at our best when we think and work together to respond to opportunities and challenges. He is committed to serving a diverse student population and supporting the faculty and staff at our institution’s heart.
Among his academic leadership highlights, Oscar has served on different committees at Cate. He also developed several curricula for basic, intermediate, and advanced Spanish in the Modern Language Department. Oscar’s academic field focuses on the cultural history of literature in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America during the early modern period (Cervantes, Don Quixote, and the Spanish Golden Age) and contemporary Latin American literature. In his master’s studies, he analyzed the representation of unsatisfied desire in the characters of Julio Ramon Ribeyro.
Oscar has been a DEI Core faculty member at Cate since 2018. He is an active member of the Inclusive Teaching Committee. He is an advocate for diversity within the school. He believes in incorporating education regarding diversity into our programs, guiding students to develop into better humans prepared to live in our changing and diversifying world.
Oscar grew up in the Peruvian Southern countryside, developing a deep love and respect for the original citizens of the Americas. He is an avid reader and gardener.
Among Oscar’s many interests are painting and writing; he has had several exhibitions of his work in South America, and here in the US, he continues his visual studies of the human form. He has also written several collections of short stories.
Chinese Instructor
Wendy Wu grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, and came to the United States to pursue a degree in Computer Science at the University of Southern California. Engineering occupied the first half of her career, and she moved to Santa Barbara in 1987, where shortly after she discovered her passion for teaching after having children. While it was her engineering background that brought her to Santa Barbara, it is her love of teaching that has made her stay. Wendy has taught at Knox School of Santa Barbara for gifted children, and independent study of Chinese at Laguna Blanca, The Riviera Ridge School, and Dos Pueblos High School.
In addition to teaching, Wendy has produced business videotapes of Chinese etiquette, interpreted for exchange students from Beijing at Brooks Institute, and interpreted for U.S. business owners who need to interact with Chinese factories and government agents. With a diverse background of two very different cultures, Wendy developed a way to teach Chinese language and Chinese culture to American kids and adults that makes learning Chinese easier and fun. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and going to concerts.