When Yves Wienecke visited the Pacific Northwest for the first time, he knew he wanted to move from New Mexico to attend college surrounded by the trees and fresh air offered by the region. Inspired somewhat by Portlandia — and Portland State’s strong language and computer science programs — he landed on Portland.
“I was really lucky from a young age, I just had that calling toward computer science,” Wieneckesays. “Since middle school I already knew that I was going to work in computer science and I just followed through.”
Language was a secondary interest, but after enrolling in the Russian Flagship program, it became just as important as computer science.
“My interest in language learning started with Spanish, with me being really close to Mexico, a lot of my community in Las Cruces, New Mexico is Spanish speaking,” he says.
A study abroad experience in South Korea through the U.S. State Department’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth led him to consider Korean as his language of choice.
But the intensive opportunity of the Russian program beckoned. His training in Russian allowed for unique computer science opportunities as well, including an internship with the University of Helsinki, working toward building a language platform like Grammarly for Russian.
“My work in particular, is basically developing some machine learning models, and using that to correct sentences for people who are learning and writing academic papers,” Wienecke says.
As he looks toward a future career in language and machine learning, Wienecke is hoping to elevate the discussion about missing representation of minority groups from the community.
“A lot of my colleagues unfortunately think that because they're programmers or just working on code they don't have to consider the social impact and the ethics of their work,” he says. “Now starting at Portland State University, they are working toward a more ethical future with the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence so I’d like to go more down that road.”
What was your journey to PSU?
My mother is an immigrant from the Philippines. My father is American from German and Russian immigrants. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest. The first time that I got any experience with what life is like in the Pacific Northwest, was during the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school when we drove all the way up to Seattle. I thought, wow, there are trees everywhere. The air feels fresh. So I started to look for schools and I found Portland State University.
What is your favorite memory of PSU?
I was waiting on campus at night with some people I'd never met before, during my freshman year, and we were just waiting for the streetcar so I thought you know what, this is a perfect time for me to do some programming for my class. I got on my computer and I started programming right then and there. These people thought that it was really hilarious that I would do that and I thought, this is cool because I feel like I'm a programmer, you know, moving closer toward the job that I would like to do in the future. I thought you know it's kind of like a nerdy thing to do but I want to be a nerd right now, that's my goal.
What are your goals post-graduation?
At the very end of the day, I would like to do something that helps the community. In the future I'd like to teach, but in order for me to become a good mentor for the future youth who I'd like to support, then I have to be a great specialist myself. So I'm looking toward getting a Ph.D. or doing a master's study, either at Portland State or the University of Washington.
What’s the best piece of advice you would give to future students?
Just really be thankful for what you have and where you are. I remember I would be really stressed sometimes because of my workload. But then I remember that I chose living here in Portland, I'm actually really happy being here. So whenever I felt super stressed or sad, depressed, I would just look around me and see you know all the trees in nature and see the Portland State campus, and it would bring a smile to my face and I’d think I'm exactly where I want to be right now.
What would you like to share about navigating the pandemic while completing your degree?
For me, there's been positives and negatives to going to a virtual format. One of the positives is that I moved back home with my family in New Mexico so I was able to spend more time with my oldest sister, my father and my mother. When I was in Portland, I would call them every week but it's a different relationship and kind of different dynamics than actually being in person with them.