Dr. Stella Porto is currently a Learning Specialist at the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, DC. She has been with IDB since September 2014. The IDB, through its Knowledge and Learning division, offers a variety of e-learning products to the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Stella manages the design, development, and delivery of several of these. (https://cursos.iadb.org)
Prior to the IDB, Stella was the director of the Masters of Distance Education and E-learning (MDE) at the University of Maryland Global Campus (https://www.umgc.edu), where she also held other positions since 2001. Prior to that, she was a Professor of Computer Science for around 9 years in her native country Brazil. Stella holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, a Masters, and Doctoral degrees in Computer Science, and much later, she added a master’s in Distance Education.
Outside of her full-time job duties, Stella is part of the QM Research colleague team and a facilitator for Quality Matters, the board of directors of IBSTPI – International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (https://ibstpi.org), and part of the editorial board of AJDE (American Journal of Distance Education). Stella also works on various consulting projects related to online learning through her own business, StellerJ Consulting.
This year has been leading and managing since March a huge initiative focused on helping Latin America to move courses online. It is called #movingonline BID – https://cursos.iadb.org/es/indes/moving-online. This is a large umbrella for various activities: a hub of resources and community of practice, weekly webinars, and various short courses to support faculty and other professionals in this transition.
Social networks:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stellaporto/
Twitter: @stellacsporto