Speaker & Instructor Bios
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The Honorable Ronald B. Adrine: Judge Adrine earned his JD degree from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1973. He began his legal career as a criminal prosecutor and specialized in criminal defense while in private legal practice with his father, Russell T. Adrine. Judge Adrine was elected to the Cleveland Municipal Court in 1981 and has been reelected four times, most recently in 2005.
One of the nation's foremost judicial activists and experts on domestic violence, he has served as a member of the Ohio Governor's Task Force on Family Violence, on the board of trustees and advisory boards of more than a dozen organizations in Ohio and nationally that address issues of violence within families, against children, in teen dating relationships, and against the elderly. He is co-author of Ohio Domestic Violence Law, now in its tenth edition. Judge Adrine also served as senior staff counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations in Washington, D.C., as Chair of the Ohio Commission on Racial Fairness and is currently serving as Chair of the Supreme Court of Ohio's advisory committee on interpreter services.
Osvaldo R. Aviles: Mr. Aviles is the interpreter program administrator for the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and is directly responsible for the creation of the statewide interpreter certification program. Prior to joining the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he was a full-time interpreter in the Philadelphia Family Court. He has more than 24 years of interpreting experience, having been certified in 1995 by the New Jersey state judiciary. In 2001, he served on the Litigants with Limited English Proficiency Subcommittee of the Supreme Court's Committee on Racial & Gender Bias. Aviles holds a master's degree in political science from Princeton University.
Claudia A'Zar: Seattle-based Claudia A'Zar is a Washington state and federally certified court and conference interpreter; she has 9 years' experience working in many venues in Washington State and around the USA. She specializes in forensic transcription and translation. She was raised trilingual (Spanish, English and Italian) in Mexico. Her degree in business and economics is from Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla, Mexico. As the outreach chair for the Washington State Court Interpreters and Translators Society (WITS), she works to defend the interests of language professionals and to educate the public.
Lionel Bajaña: Lionel Bajaña was born in Ecuador and has lived in New York City since the age of 13. He began interpreting in 1990, working with the Bronx County District Attorney's Office in grand jury proceedings. In 1998, after passing the New York state exam, Bajaña became a staff interpreter at the Bronx County Supreme Court, Criminal Term. He is an active member of NAJIT and the vice-chair of the Court Interpreter's Chapter/Local 1070/DC37/AFSCME
Elena Bogdanovich-Werner, Ph.D.: Elena Bogdanovich-Werner is a freelance certified court interpreter in the states of Oregon and Washington, an ATA-certified English>Russian translator, and a college Russian/English language instructor. She earned an advanced degree from Moscow Pedagogical University and has life-long experience in teaching languages and linguistics.
Currently she is the administrator of ATA's Slavic Languages Division and contributes to its newsletter "SlavFile," where she publishes a series on common mistakes made by English-native speakers of Russian.
Rafael Carrillo: Rafael Carrillo is federally certified and licensed in Texas, is a member of NAJIT, ATA, and El Paso Interpreters and Translators Association. He was a staff interpreter for the federal court in New Mexico, and is currently employed as a staff interpreter in the Western District of Texas. He has 12 years of experience interpreting and translating for federal, state, and administrative courts and has been a consultant and expert witness for numerous government agencies. Additionally, Mr. Carrillo has participated in international conferences on international cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.
Juliet Choi, Officer of Diversity Partnerships, American Red Cross, National Headquarters. Juliet Choi focuses on building strategic partnerships to ensure that diverse and underserved communities are better served. Before working with the Red Cross, she was with the Asian American Justice Center as Fellow and staff attorney; there her expertise focused on language access, with an emphasis on healthcare and the courts. She led AAJC's post-Katrina relief and advocacy efforts, which ultimately helped to amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to protect the limited English proficient community.
A certified mediator, Ms. Choi previously served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Dennis M. Sweeney of the Circuit Court for Howard County, Maryland. She received her law school's Alumni Association Award for character and leadership. She currently serves on the National Project Advisory Committee for Emergency Preparedness for the Office of Minority Health of U.S. HHS; Leadership and Diversity Committee, Civil Policy Group of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association; the board of directors of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association; and the civil rights committee co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
Rob Cruz: Rob was born in Cuba and grew up in Miami. After earning
two associate degrees and working in middle- and upper-level management,
he was later promoted to corporate trainer, in which capacity he helped
develop Spanish materials and training curricula. He also interpreted at
national conferences for upper-level management. Rob became a state certified
interpreter in Tennessee. For the past four years, he has worked full time
in the Tennessee court system in addition to serving as an expert witness
in federal court matters. He owns RCIT, an interpreting, translating and
consulting firm.
Rob currently serves on the board of directors of the Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators and is an approved presenter of the ethics and skills-building workshop mandated by the state Supreme Court. He was director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of East Tennessee, where he served as the education chair; and he currently serves on the board of directors of the Athens Area Council for the Arts and the Hispanic Community Outreach Committee of the E. G. Fisher Library.
Natasha Curtis: Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Natasha Curtis is a freelance Spanish><English translator and interpreter with more than 13 years of experience. She is the sole proprietor of Lingua Nexus, LLC, president of the Community and Court Interpreters of the Ohio Valley (CCIO), member of the translation subcommittee of the Supreme Court of Ohio interpreter services program, and member of the NAJIT's publications committee. Natasha provides ethics and skill-building workshops for interpreters. She holds a BA in translation from Argentina, and an MA in translation from the U.S.
John Estill: After a career in industry as a systems analyst and programmer, John Estill became a Spanish<>English translator and interpreter. He now works as an interpreter (judiciary and community) and translator in the Millersburg, Ohio area. He has no certification as yet, but has passed the NJITC written portion in Spanish. Mr. Estill studied engineering at U.C. Berkeley, and has been interpreting and translating since 1994.
Ramon Miguel del Villar is an attorney-at-law and a Spanish Federally Certified Court Interpreter, currently performing as the Chief Court Interpreter for the United Stated Courts for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, Texas. He has collaborated with the Administrative Office of the United States Court as an examiner during oral examinations of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Project and served as consultant retained by the University of Arizona to update the written portion of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Project. Previous experience include general counsel, president and CEO of Orla Laboratories, S.A. as well as becoming a founding partner of the Law Office of Ogarrio, Quijano & del Villar and has acquired extensive experience as a Consultant Interpreter while serving as a contracted official trial interpreter as well as Mexican Law Consultant for local attorneys in the Southern District of Texas.
Janet Fasy: Ms. Fasy is the deputy court administrator for the Court of Common Pleas, for the first judicial district (FJD) (Philadelphia County), where she manages 150 court reporters, operates the FJD records reproduction center and oversees the contracts of the various interpreter agencies that work within the Philadelphia courts. Since 1998, she has designed and organized informational sessions for interpreters on various areas of criminal law, family law, civil law and ethics. She has presented before judges and court administrators in numerous programs regarding the use of language and sign interpreters. In 2001, she served on the litigants with limited English proficiency subcommittee of the Supreme Court's Committee on Racial & Gender Bias. Ms. Fasy is a certified manager of court reporters, a registered professional reporter and a certified reporting instructor.
Dr.
Lois Feuerle: Lois Feuerle is the coordinator of court interpreter certification,
testing and training for the Oregon Judicial Department. Prior to relocating
to Portland, Oregon in 2000, she spent five years as the coordinator of
court interpreting services for the state of New York and five years as
the administrator of the translation and interpreting program at NYU.
Her working languages are German and English. She is certified by the American
Translators Association for German > English and is on the list of approved
translators for the IMF. She has been a grader for New Jersey's German court
interpreting exam since 1998. She is a member of the NAJIT Board of directors
and serves as Vice President of SSTI. She was recently appointed chair of
the ATA honors and awards committee. She has served two terms on the Oregon
Governor's Commission on Healthcare Interpreters, the body charged with
establishing a certification process for medical interpreters in Oregon.
She is a frequent presenter at translator and interpreter conventions and at CLE sessions for attorneys and judges. She holds a Ph.D. and JD and is admitted to the New Jersey Bar.
Doina Francu was born in Romania and graduated from the University of Cluj-Napoca with an MA in French & English languages and literatures. She has worked as a full-time translator and interpreter in Romania, France and the US for more than 30 years.
Thelma Gomez-Ferry: Thelma Gomez-Ferry is a native of Panama and graduated from the New Mexico State University. She has more than 18 years of experience managing a linguistics consultant firm. Her specialization is conference interpreting in the legal and medical fields and she is an official state certified staff interpreter at the Council of Judges State County Courthouse in El Paso, Texas. Previously she worked under contract with the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She is a lifetime member of the Asociación Panameña de Traductores e Intérpretes (APTI). As one of the founding members of the Texas Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (TAJIT), she serves as a membership committee board member.
Liliana Gonzalez: Liliana Gonzalez is the chair of NAJIT's Tape Transcription Project and will provide an overview of the tape transcription process from start to finish, beginning with the audio part of the assignment through the transcription itself. She will address many of the challenges of transcribing tapes and the pitfalls that interpreters should avoid. She will also report on the status of the Tape Transcription Project and the position paper that the committee is in the process of preparing. There will be ample opportunity for questions, responses, and sharing insider tips in order to produce the best quality product.
Melinda González-Hibner is a Colorado and federally certified court interpreter who is passionate about supporting the growth and progress of our profession. She holds a master's in political sociology from the London School of Economics and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a freelance interpreter, translator and court interpreter trainer. She is a Consortium and FCICE orl exam rater and past administrator for the Colorado state court interpreter program. She is also past co-chair of the Colorado Association of Professional Interpreters and served as SSTI Director until 2007.
Les Jin: Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. Les Jin is responsible for overall day-to-day management of the organization in Washington, D.C., including managing programs, providing membership services, and overseeing relations with affiliates, sponsors, and other organizations. He supervises the staff and volunteers and works closely with the NAPABA Board in developing and implementing policy.
Previously, Mr. Jin served as staff director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where he was chief operating officer for over four years. Before that, he served as general counsel for the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors. Mr. Jin began his career in Chicago, Illinois where he was a VISTA volunteer, served as a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, worked as a trial lawyer for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was a hearings officer for the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
Mr. Jin is a former NAPABA Trailblazer Award recipient and AABA of Greater Chicago Member of the Year. A native of the San Francisco Bay area, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Davis and his law degree from the University of Oregon. He also has a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Katty Kauffman: Katty Kauffman is a federally certified court interpreter, member of AIIC, ATA, and NAJIT. She graduated from Pedro de Valdivia University School of Law in Santiago, Chile, where she currently resides. In addition to interpreting in the freelance market (two Summits of the Americas, among other major international events), she serves as translator, interpreter, and consultant on interpreter qualification and selection policy to Office of the Public Prosecutor of Chile. Since the roll-out of the new criminal procedure in Chile, Katty has interpreted at numerous international conferences on comparative criminal procedural law; and has trained prosecutors, public defenders, law enforcement, and judges on the use of interpreters in the courtroom. She has also interpreted at numerous trials and hearings under the new system in Chile.
Dr. Carolyn Kinney: Carolyn J. Kinney has been the court interpreting program specialist at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts since 2004. She worked in several program areas of court operations for the AOUSC for 14 years, serving as communications manager and training specialist. Prior to that, Kinney was a Peace Corps volunteer and contractor in Senegal, Togo, Niger, Cameroon, and Kenya, and managed multilingual offices in Senegal and Togo. When she returned to the United States, she earned a master's and a doctorate in linguistics, with an emphasis in sociolinguistics, from Georgetown University. This was inspired by a life-long curiosity about language and culture piqued during four years in West Africa and previous residence in Japan and Mexico. Her career also includes teaching English in Senegal, French in Washington state, and linguistics at the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Kinney has presented and/or published on discourse analysis, cross-cultural communication, and the federal court interpreting program.
Young Lee: Mr. Lee has been a state of Washington certified court interpreter in Korean<>English since 1986. He has worked as an interpreter and translator for courts, hospitals, and schools; for the departments of health, labor, and motor vehicles; for DSHS, lawyers, and police departments. Mr. Lee has assisted in examination design and administration for the Korean oral exam in the state of Washington, and has taught oral exam preparation since 1998. Prior to that, he translated Korean newspapers, magazines, and Korean language radio broadcasts into English for the American Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, and translated for corporations in the U.S. and South Korea. Mr. Lee has been a member of the Washington State Court Interpreters and Translators Society (WITS) since 1993 and of the Korean Interpreters Association of Washington State (KIAWA) since 1994.
Dr. Peter Lindquist: Peter Lindquist holds a Ph.D. in translation and interpretation from the Universidad de Alicante in Spain. He teaches translation and Spanish at San Diego State University and the Universidad de Alicante. Previously, he taught these subjects at the University of Arizona and taught English and translation at Pima Community College.
He is the president of the Society for the Study of Translation and Interpreting and a member of NAJIT's advocacy committee. His research is primarily focused on improving interpreter instruction through empirical evidence of interpreter performance. His research has been published in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Special Agent Dennis Lowe: Special Agent Lowe of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations Clandestine Laboratory Unit has been a police officer since 1984, and has 20 years' experience in narcotics. A certified clandestine laboratory team member and site safety officer since 2000, he has responded to and coordinated response to more than 200 clandestine drug laboratories. He has presented methamphetamine training programs to public safety personnel and citizens throughout Ohio and the Midwest. A certified law enforcement instructor since 1993, Agent Lowe is also assigned as the Clandestine Laboratory Coordinator for the Columbus Office of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
Liliana Gonzalez is a federal and state (CA & MD) certified court interpreter, conference interpreter and translator. She is a member of NAJIT, ATA and CCIA, and has provided interpretation, translation, editing, expert witness, transcription, translation and voice over services to government and the private sector, both nationally and internationally. Ms. Gonzalez has extensive experience in the language field and has worked in transcription and translation since the late 80's. She is very involved in training and research and currently serves as chair of NAJIT's transcription and translation committee.
Dr. Gladys González Matthews: Gladys González Matthews has more than 20 years of experience as a translator and linguist. She holds a bachelor's degree in French from the Universidad de Costa Rica, a master's degree in translation and terminology, and a doctorate in linguistics with a focus on legal translation from Université Laval in Quebec City. She is part of a research team from McGill University which is developing a trilingual dictionary (English-French-Spanish) of contract and franchise law. Matthews has worked as a project director in international organizations in Costa Rica, Canada, and the United States, and has taught languages at the college level in Canada and the U.S. She has presented on topics of translation and languages at national and international conferences. She is a certified court interpreter in the state of Indiana.
Nancy McCloskey: Coordination and Review Section, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice. Nancy McCloskey is a Virginia court-certified interpreter in Spanish and English and a NAJIT member since 2000. She has worked with DOJ's Civil Rights Division since 2001, first as a language specialist, and currently as investigator, coordinator, interpreter, translator, and webmaster for the Coordination and Review Section. She investigates national origin discrimination complaints against courts, police and corrections departments; trains law enforcement and other officials on working with interpreters; provides technical assistance on interpreting and translating issues; serves as office liaison to the language professional community; fields hotline calls; translates incoming as well as outgoing correspondence; and maintains COR's website as well as www.lep.gov, the website of the Federal Interagency Working Group on Limited English Proficiency. Prior professional pursuits include freelance court, medical and community interpreting and translating, administering a federal grant serving Salvadoran immigrant families, founding a community coalition to address Latino adolescent health issues, working on immigration, international health and district Latino community liaison for a US congressman, serving as in-country project director in Madrid, Spain for an international healthcare provider, and teaching English as a second language.
Lisette M. McCormick, Esq: Ms. McCormick is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission on Gender, Racial & Ethnic Fairness. Prior to directing the work of the Interbranch Commission, she was the executive director of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System. A graduate of Duquesne University School of Law, she has had a long career in public service, serving as a staff attorney with the Neighborhood Services Association, the Allegheny County public defender's office, and as assistant counsel and deputy attorney general for the Waste Unit of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. She was also in private practice with the law firm of Tabakin, Carroll and Curtin in Pittsburgh.
Dennis McKenna: Dennis McKenna is a California and federally certified Spanish interpreter and an approved translator for the Los Angeles Superior Court. He became interested in Mexican Spanish vocabulary when working on tape transcription and translation assignments. He is the author of Dictionary of Mexicanismos: Slang, Colloquialisms and Expressions Used in Mexico and the Criminal Court Dictionary, which focuses on legal and colloquial usage in the criminal justice system in the western United States. He has also been a test rater for the National Center for State Courts.
Jayson Meline: Jayson Meline supervises, mentors, and trains staff interpreters for the Superior Court of Arizona for Maricopa County, in the Juvenile Court and the Regional Court Center. Prior to that, Meline interpreted for the Idaho District Court in Idaho Falls, Idaho, proposing and creating the staff position. He worked for R.R. Donnelly & Sons in Chicago, Illinois, as regional manager of operations in Latin America, where he directed the publication and distribution of media, including the translation and interpretation of media to markets in Latin America, for Fortune 500 companies. Jayson Meline was certified by the NCSC Consortium in 1999.
Dr. Nancy Schweda-Nicholson: Nancy Schweda-Nicholson, who holds a doctorate from Georgetown University, is professor of linguistics and cognitive science with a joint appointment in the legal studies program at the University of Delaware. She is widely published in the areas of interpretation theory and practice, interpreter training, and language planning for court interpreter services, both in the U.S. and abroad. She is a member of the committee on court interpreters and legal translation of the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT), the international umbrella organization for more than 100 professional translation and interpretation associations. Nicholson has served as a consultant and trainer for the FBI, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and the Administrative Offices of the Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, and Ohio Courts. She was appointed to the federal court interpreters advisory board by the late Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States. Dr. Nicholson is currently studying interpreter services at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court.
Jacki Noh: Jacki Noh grew up in Seoul, Korea, and has been living in the San Francisco Bay area since the early 1980's. She is currently studying translation and interpretation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She has worked as an interpreter, translator and voice-over talent for over 22 years. Her professional memberships include serving on ATA's board of directors, membership in AIIC, and on the Judicial Council of California Court interpreters' advisory panel. She has interpreted throughout North America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Noteworthy assignments include the Six-Party Talks in Beijing, technical talks in Pyongyang, three Olympic Games, CNN broadcasts and the 2006 World Baseball Classic.
Dr. Dagoberto Orrantia: Dagoberto Orrantia (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana) recently retired as associate professor of Spanish at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, where he taught court interpretation and legal translation. He is an active member of NAJIT, and has conducted training courses for interpreters in several states and abroad sponsored by NAJIT and by the Society for the Study of Interpretation and Translation. Dr. Orrantia is a federally certified interpreter and holds the American Translators Association's English<>Spanish accreditation.
Guadalupe Ortiz: Guadalupe Ortiz holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's in family education. She is presently the deputy director of accreditation and certification in Mexican Indian Languages at the INALI. Previously she worked for several years at the Ministry of Public Education and in high school and higher education administration. Guadalupe is the leader of the team that designed the interpreter training model at the INALI.
Joseph Pham: Joseph Pham is certified in Washington State and interprets in Vietnamese for all levels of the court in the Puget Sound, Washington area. He also translates for the King County, Washington Transportation Department; the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle, Washington; and the Vietnamese Catholic Community of Western Washington State. Mr. Pham has taught interpreting and translating in the Highline School District of Seattle.
Dr. Alexander Raïnof: Alexander Raïnof attended Boston University and Harvard University, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature (specializing in Anglo-American, French, Italian, and Spanish languages and literature) from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is a certified interpreter for the federal, state, and Los Angeles County courts, as well as for all state agencies in California. Dr. Raïnof is certified by NAJIT and SSTI with the NJITCE: Spanish credential. He is currently a professor in the Romance, German, and Russian languages and literatures department at California State University, Long Beach, and in the translation and interpretation certificate program at UCLA/UNEX. Dr. Raïnof serves as a member of the board of directors of NAJIT and the Society for the Study of Translation and Interpretation
Jacquie Ring-Salguero is a Senior Court Services Analyst with the California Court Interpreters Program which serves the Judicial Council of California, Administrative Office of the Courts. Jacquie leads the current test contract for the administration of certification and registration exams for California state court interpreters. In addition to acting as the project lead of this contract, Jacquie also provides leadership and support for research and data collection regarding future test development options, interpreter training programs, and interpreter recruitment efforts.
Jeffrey S. Robinson: Jeffrey Robinson directs the National Virtual Translation Center (NVTC), an intelligence community element established by law under section 907 of the USA Patriot Act and section 313 of House Resolution 4628 of the 2003 Intelligence Authorization Act. Mr. Robinson is a defense intelligence senior on assignment to the NVTC. As such, Mr. Robinson reports operationally to the director of National Intelligence, and administratively to the director of the FBI. The NVTC translates or brokers translations for the intelligence community, Department of Defense, and other U.S. government organizations. It develops and hosts translation-enabling state-of-the-art translation networks, tools and technology. It serves as a conduit to academia, industry, trade associations and other non-governmental organizations involved in translation. Mr. Robinson holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and manages an enterprise that employs an expansive network of linguists.
Wanda Romberger: Wanda Romberger is the manager of court interpreting services at the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Virginia. She facilitates the activities of the Consortium for state court interpreter certification in the development of test materials and other measurements of language interpreter proficiency. She serves as a key staff member in the administration of the federal court interpreter certification examination project, and advances the interests of the National Center's interpreter practice area.
Prior to joining the National Center, Ms. Romberger was a court operations consultant with Florida's Office of the State Courts Administrator, and program manager with the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in Florida. Ms. Romberger is a former elected prothonotary (principal clerk) and clerk of courts for the court of common pleas of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, serving two terms of office. She holds a B.S. in business marketing and is completing requirements to be a fellow of the Institute for Court Management.
Tony
Rosado, Esq.: Mr. Rosado, an experienced staff and freelance interpreter,
is federally certified and New Mexico certified in Spanish. He is also a
professional translator. Currently he is a full-time interpreter with the
Denver County Court. Formerly he was a full-time interpreter with the Bernalillo
County New Mexico Metropolitan Court. He has done court and legal interpretation
in Mexico and the U.S., including in Mexico City's Supreme Court,
the Colorado and New Mexico state systems, immigration court, and federal
and state administrative courts. Mr. Rosado holds a bachelor's degree in
social science from the Universidad Tecnológica de México
in México City, and earned a law degree from the Escuela Libre de
Derecho. México City.
Ali Salcedo: Ali Salcedo is a court interpreter for the Superior Court of Arizona in Mesa, Arizona, where she interprets delinquency, dependency, severance, adoptions, guardianship, emancipation, and abortion hearings in Juvenile Court. She also trains staff interpreters on juvenile proceedings and terminology. Prior to that, she worked for Bowne Global Solutions in Washington, D.C., interpreting immigration court proceedings.
Claudia Samulowitz: Ms. Samulowitz is state certified in California and Indiana, as well as federally certified. She has more than 20 years of experience as a Spanish/English interpreter and translator for the judicial system, government agencies, private corporations, translation agencies, law enforcement agencies and private attorneys. Samulowitz is also an Indiana court interpreting certification program instructor/facilitator. She specialized in conference interpreting and general translation at the Instituto de Intérpretes y Traductores in Mexico.
Agustin Servín de la Mora: Agustín Servín de la Mora was born and raised in México City. He holds a bachelor's and master's from Mexican universities. A federally certified Spanish interpreter, he has been a court interpreter for the past 20 years, both as a free-lancer and staff interpreter for the 13th and 9th Judicial Circuits as well as at the U.S. Court for the Middle District of Florida. Currently, he is the lead interpreter for the 9th Judicial Circuit and a member of the advisory group on interpreter issues for the Supreme Court of Florida.
Mr. Servín de la Mora has worked for the administrative offices of the state courts conducting orientation seminars and advanced skills workshops for court interpreters in Nevada, Georgia, Florida, Nebraska, Michigan, Missouri, and Kentucky. He has presented at national conventions, including NAJIT, ATA and the National Association of State Court Administrators. Mr. Servín de la Mora is a supervisor rater for the National Center for State Courts and has been a lead rater for the federal and Consortium oral examinations. He is also a contract interpreter for Language Line® and president of the Florida Institute of Interpretation and Translation.
Purvi Shah: Purvi Shah is the executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women, a community-based, anti-domestic violence agency. Purvi presents routinely on Sakhi's 16 years of work in building community awareness and changing the attitudes which perpetuate violence. She has been a featured speaker at national women's conferences, government meetings and policy panels. Purvi oversees, manages, and develops the strategic focus of Sakhi's programs and operations, including direct services and support, community engagement and education activities, fundraising, and general operations. She began working with Sakhi in 1996 as an active volunteer in the literacy committee. Purvi earned her master's in English from Rutgers University. Her first book of poetry, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), won a Many Voices Project prize.
Susana Stettri Sawry: Susana Stettri Sawrey is a Spanish interpreter certified by the U.S. Courts and the state of Washington. She is a staff interpreter and assistant manager in the Office of Interpreter Services, King County Superior Court, in Seattle, Washington. Ms. Stettri Sawrey has long been a trainer of interpreters at the Institute of Translation and Interpretation at Bellevue Community College, Washington, of which she is a co-founder; at the University of Arizona Summer Institute for Court interpreters (and other workshops); and in the master's program at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. She lectures extensively on ethics at conferences and workshops. She was closely involved in establishing court interpreter certification in the state of Washington, and for many years was a member of the State Commission on Court Interpreters established by the Supreme Court.
Christine Stoneman: Special Legal Counsel Coordination and Review Section, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice. Christine Stoneman has also served as deputy chief and staff attorney in the Civil Rights Division. She was a leader in implementation and enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 13166, as well Title IX and other areas of COR's jurisdiction. She has overseen investigations, technical assistance efforts, and collaborative projects designed to ensure equal access, including many focused on increasing access for limited English proficient persons to federal and federally conducted programs and activities. Prior to joining the Civil Rights Division, Christine was an attorney at the Center for Law and Education, a Skadden Fellow/Attorney at Legal Action of Wisconsin, and federal judicial law clerk to the late Honorable John W. Reynolds of the Eastern District of Wisconsin. She graduated magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center and received a postgraduate degree as a Rotary Scholar at Monash University in Australia. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Sandro Tomasi: Sandro Tomasi has been a Spanish<>English interpreter and translator since 1991. He is a New York State approved court interpreter, and is certified as a medical interpreter by the state of Washington. He is currently researching English and Spanish legal terms, and has a personal collection of more than one hundred legal dictionaries and codes. Since 1995, Mr. Tomasi has been training interpreters, translators, lawyers, nurses, and doctors on various interpreting and translation issues.
Rebekah Tosado, Director for Review and Compliance, DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Rebekah Tosado's office reviews and assesses allegations of violations of civil rights, civil liberties, or profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion, by employees and officials of the Department of Homeland Security. As director, Ms. Tosado is responsible for overseeing the investigation and resolution of complaints filed with the office. Ms. Tosado has also served as an attorney-advisor on matters related to immigration law and policy. Prior to working at Homeland Security, Ms. Tosado was an attorney-advisor at the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, where she worked on issues related to serving limited-English proficient (LEP) students in K-12. She volunteers as senior policy advisor for the District of Columbia public schools. Ms. Tosado is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School.
Jorge Ungo: Jorge Ungo has developed, trained, and managed healthcare and community interpreters, including those who work with some of the largest healthcare organizations in Texas. As project manager of the interpreting division of Masterword Services, Inc., he handles more than 1,000 requests per month for interpreting services. Mr. Ungo is a member of the Houston Interpreters and Translators Association, the National Council on Interpreting in Healthcare, the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and translators, and is a moderator of the Masterword Interpreters listserve. He has presented numerous training sessions, and speaks regularly to groups of interpreters and translators.
Verla Viera: Verla Viera is a Washington state court certified Spanish interpreter from the Seattle area. A relative newcomer to the language professions, she worked for 16 years as a librarian and library administrator in Washington state, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, on the U.S.-Mexico border. She holds an MA in Spanish and a master's in library science from the University of Wisconsin.
Dr. Georganne Weller: Georgeanne Weller holds a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of Delaware and an master's in sociolinguistics from Georgetown University. She has headed interpreting programs in Chile, Delaware, Hawaii and Mexico. Author of over 30 articles on interpretation and translation, she has taught a multitude of courses in these fields. She has given 25 papers at ATA, NAJIT, and other professional associations between 1986 and 2006. She is a federally certified court interpreter, a member of AIIC and CMIC, and holds contracts with the U.S. Department of State and the government of Canada for freelance conference interpretation work. As of April, 2006, Dr. Weller assumed the position of director of language policy at the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas in Mexico City.