As the current Research Projects Coordinator for the Centre of Sound Communities, Patricia is responsible for aiding in the liaising and the consultation of local community organizations and university partners to support development, coordination, and delivery of outreach activities, and to facilitate their promotion and media relations in both English and French.

Through technology and media, Patricia seeks to demonstrate how material from that cultural archive can evolve to be more tangible to the communities from which it was collected. Patricia was responsible for the gathering of materials and content for the East and Central European Community Project, interacting with various cultural communities in Cape Breton. This project, funded by the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) and supported by Cape Breton University, sought to develop the diversitycapebreton.ca web portal. Patricia originally joined Dr. Ostashewski’s research team to discover more about her family origins, as she has a personal connection with the Ukrainian Community of Whitney Pier, after which she reconnected with her family in the Ukraine. Patricia began working with Dr. Marcia Ostashewski in summer 2009, first as a student research and exhibit technician, and then as a volunteer community-based researcher.

Patricia was formerly a high school teacher in Japan with the Ishikawa Prefectural Board of Education, and a junior high school teacher with the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education in Korea, where she taught for several years with the JET Programme and EPIK, respectively. Patricia Nalepa is currently an independent contractor at VIPkid, who provide an international learning experience to children in China.