Mr. Raul Nakasone was born in Jauja, Peru. His father was Mr. Heisei Nakasone from Yagaji Jima, Okinawa, Japan; and Ms. Simona Suarez from Jauja, Peru. Mr. Nakasone graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Educación in Lima Peru with a Teaching Diploma in Mathematics, and Physics and Chemistry as minors. Mr. Nakasone then came as a scholarship holder to the University of Michigan  to study English as a second language and then to do post graduate work. He went to do his post graduate work in Lewis and Clark College in Portland Oregon where he received his Master's in Teaching degree with major in Physics. Then he went back to Peru to teach at the university and secondary level, in inner city and rural institutions; and also in state and private schools. In 1977 he came back to the U.S. because the military dictatorship closed down his university. He worked as a volunteer at the Josephine County Alternative Center in Grants Pass Oregon, teaching math and physics to adolescents who otherwise be drop outs of the regular school system. At the same time he was working in what now isTroon & Troon Vineyard and learned about farming in the U.S. and the lives of the migrant workers.  This important experience has given him an interest in the migrant workers' children and their education. Then he went back to Peru when democracy was re-established at the end of 1979.
     In 1980 Mr. Nakasone started the organization of the Solar Energy and Appropriate Technology Information Center in the rural town of Guadalupe located 500 miles north from Lima. In this town he taught Physics in the local Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe school for one year. He gave presentations about appropriate technology and solar energy in the local farming cooperatives, and helped organize youth associations to do social community work for the poor and the ones in need.

     In 1983, Mr. Nakasone designed the curriculum, and the academic and administrative organization of the Carl Gauss High School in Lima Peru, an experimental private school that opened its doors in 1984. He was the founder principal, the foreign language instructor and the integrated science coordinator and teacher for its first two years of existence. During his college years Mr. Nakasone has been a semi-professional soccer player, because of this, the Gauss School curriculum had a strong emphasis in organized sports with the main idea of participation and fun. Because of Mr. Nakasone's father background, the school had music and martial arts preparation as part of the curriculum. The Project for this school started as a family dream, the key people involved were Mr. Jeisey Nakasone, Mr. and Mrs. Sixto and Felicia Naveda and their three daughters: Ruth, Isabel and Guadalupe; with help and enthusiasm from technicians and professionals: Mr. Cueva, Mr. Hiromoto, Mr. Cam, Mr. Vela and especially Mr. Maldonado who offered his house for the school to function during its first years and volunteered to legally represent all partners involved. The Gauss School is an example of a team work, we all became members of a community which after the first year, involved parents and neighbours like Huamani, Yacila, Ubillus, Zegarra and many other families from the Santa Isabel area. Then Mr. Nakasone was invited to teach full time at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion after a national selective process.
     Mr. Nakasone has been the Chairman of the Physics Department, and later the Director of the Student Teaching Program at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion in Lima Peru. He has been well recognized as a teacher, educator, and administrator in his university, and at the Community of Santa Isabel in Lima where the Gauss School is located.
     Raul Nakasone came back to the U.S. in 1990 as an exchange visitor to Southern Oregon State College and also teach physics at the elementary school level as part of his involvement in the Integrated Science Project. This opportunity was opened by his Lewis and Clark former classmates Greg Edblom, Mike Keyes and especially Amy Fromme, who with the generous help from other friends like Richard Troon, Alice Silverman, Tom Smith, Roger and Barrie Laynes, John and Judy Barton were able to create a visiting faculty position at SOSC. Raul taught Physics to 3rd. and 4th. graders at the Applegate Elementary School as part of the Integrated Science project and Raul also team taught with John Salinas at Rogue Community College and received excellent trainning in instructional technology from John.

     Because of Mr. Nakasone's experiences in both educational systems: here and in Peru, he now greatly contribute in TESC programs involving comparative educational systems.

More information