Chris Durban

Chris translates every day and enjoys it immensely. She grew up in northern New York State, and studied modern languages for a year in Montreal before moving to France, shifting to languages and business studies at the Université de Paris. After several years as an in-house Fr to En translator at a Paris bank and many night courses, she went freelance. Four decades on, her client base includes large corporations and SMEs in France and abroad, with a focus on high-profile, high-visibility and high-risk situations in business strategy, investor relations and financial communications.

Chris was awarded ITI’s John Sykes Memorial Prize in 2018, SFT’s Caravelle Florence-Herbulot in 2020, and ATA’s Gode Medal in 2001, all for her contributions to the profession. She is co-founder and co-organizer of both SFT’s Université d’été de la traduction financière (UETF) and of “Translate in…” training events focusing on writing skills for translators.  

Cate Avery

Cate Avery studied German and French, in the UK and then in Canada. She joined ITI as an Associate in 1989 and later upgraded to MITI, specialising in patent translation. Having fallen out of love with French over time, she limited her translation work to German>English and began to work intensively on her Italian. However, once she started offering this professionally, doubts crept in: how could she know whether she made the grade as a professional translator in this language pair? The solution was to take the ITI assessment in Italian>English and let her peers decide. She was thrilled to be awarded the John Hayes Prize for the best assessment in 2020.

Cate is a keen face-to-face networker and a frequent speaker at ITI events, most recently at the Brighton conference in 2022.

Ellen Worrell

Ellen is an award-winning translator specialising in furniture manufacturing, travel and tourism, animal and nature conservation, and renewable energy. She was delighted and gobsmacked in equal measure when she won the ITI's John Hayes Prize in 2018, awarded for the best performance in the MITI translation assessment. When not translating, Ellen can be found wearing one of several other hats – as Chair of the local pre-school, Treasurer for the local sustainability group and Chair of her netball club.

Joëlle Bouille

A French native speaker from Belgium, Joëlle has a Bachelor and Master of Science degree in Business Engineering from Liège University (HEC Management School). After graduating, she was selected to attend a paid full time speed training in software programming for three months, and then went on to work for seven years as a software developer in the banking and finance industry.

In 2005, her lifelong passion for the English language took over: she was naturally drawn to translation and has worked as a freelance translator for over 17 years.

At first only translating from English to French, she quickly added two other source languages, Spanish and Dutch, which she also studied in university. She relocated to France in 2018 and her number one area of specialisation is human development and international cooperation.

She received the John Hayes Prize 2022 for excellence in translation in May.

Prof. Joanna Drugan

Joanna is Professor of Translation, and Head of the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her research focuses on translation quality and ethics, most recently in contexts of transnational organised crime.

Jo was awarded the John Sykes Memorial Prize jointly with Anthea Bell by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in 2019.

Ewa Jasinska-Davidson

Ewa Jasinska-Davidson is a qualified and experienced Conference, Business and PSI interpreter for Polish A, English B and Spanish C and Certified Translator/Interpreter with a listing on the Polish Ministry of Justice. She holds qualifications from both Poland and the United Kingdom. Ewa has been providing interpreting services for over 18 years and loves to solve communication headaches for multi-­lingual businesses and organisations. She is very enthusiastic about entrepreneurship and has got background in international event management. Ewa also works as an Associate Lecturer in Interpreting at the London Metropolitan University. She is a member of various professional associations including: MITI, NRPSI, CIOL, AIT and IAPTI.

She won the award for the best performance on an Interpreting Assessment presented by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in May 2021.

You can connect with Ewa on LinkedIn and her website is: www.ewajasinska.com.

Paul Appleyard

Apart from a brief foray into pre-sales, Pauls entire career (so far) has been in the translation and interpreting sector, including a time in the last century managing the translation process for a number of software companies. Paul was a member of the ITI Board for six years, and Chair from 2019 to 2022. He has contributed to ITI in a number of ways over many years, including as past coordinator of the French Network, working with the Networks & Regional Groups, and writing articles for the ITI Bulletin.

He is a Fellow of ITI, qualified in both translation and interpreting (and won the ITI Interpreting Assessment Award in 2019), as well as being a member of the American Translators Association, the SFT in France, and the British Computer Society.

For most of this century, Paul has been a director of a language services provider with his French wife, who is also a member of ITI. He lives in Surrey, within easy reach of London and well placed for escapes to the continent when circumstances permit.

Dr. Summer Mouallem

Dr Summer Mouallem is the owner and director of Arabic Translation Solutions Ltd. She is a former Senior Lecturer in interpreting and translation with extensive teaching experience. Summer has designed and delivered workshops for UK institutions like the CIoL and internationally at the ICC in the Hague and the Qatar Foundation and she also worked as an External Advisor to the Arab Open University and Westminster University. Summer has a number of publications in interpreting and translation and has successfully supervised several PhD candidates. Additionally, Summer, who is registered as bilingual (Arabic {} English), works as a freelance conference & public service interpreter and translator. Her clients include NATO, UN, FCO, Save the Children, Manchester United, GMP and many more. Summer is a member of many linguists’ associations in the UK and the USA and was the winner of the 2022 ITI Interpreting Assessment Award.

Ewa Jasinska-Davidson

Ewa Jasinska-Davidson is a qualified and experienced Conference, Business and PSI interpreter for Polish A, English B and Spanish C and Certified Translator/Interpreter with a listing on the Polish Ministry of Justice. She holds qualifications from both Poland and the United Kingdom. Ewa has been providing interpreting services for over 18 years and loves to solve communication headaches for multi-­lingual businesses and organisations. She is very enthusiastic about entrepreneurship and has got background in international event management. Ewa also works as an Associate Lecturer in Interpreting at the London Metropolitan University. She is a member of various professional associations including: MITI, NRPSI, CIOL, AIT and IAPTI.

She won the award for the best performance on an Interpreting Assessment presented by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in May 2021.

You can connect with Ewa on LinkedIn and her website is: www.ewajasinska.com.

Debora Chobanian

Debora is a Brazilian>Portuguese interpreter, translator and intercultural consultant. She is a lecturer in Portuguese language, literature and interpreting and has a Masters Degree in interpreting. She works as a high-profile interpreter for politicians and business as well as a freelance translator specialising in business, marketing and international organisations. Debora won the ITI award for Best performance on an interpreting assignment in 2017.

Mike Downey

Mike Downey has been working as a freelance translator and interpreter since 2017, having previously worked in-house for two language service providers.

At the 2021 ITI Awards, Mike won the award for the best performance on an interpreting assignment as part of a team of interpreters working for Welsh Government as they welcomed a Breton delegation to Cardiff. Then in at the 2022 ITI Awards, Mike was part of a team that received a special commendation in the same award category for French interpreting services provided to a delegation from Greater Lyon attending COP26 in Glasgow.

Mike lives in Edinburgh and sits on the ITI Scotland (ScotNet) committee.

Lauren Shadi

Lauren Shadi MA, MITI, MCIL, NRPSI is a FR>EN translator and FR<>EN interpreter. After translating and interpreting in-house for a property developer, flying between France and the UK, she has worked freelance since 2008 and specialises in legal and audio-visual fields and education. She owns Give Me Your Word Ltd, and lives in Manchester with her husband and three children. She thrives on interpreting in the criminal justice system. Lauren was the recipient of ITI's best performance on an interpreting assignment award in 2020.

Yelena McCafferty

Yelena is a Russian translator and interpreter who moved on from teaching English as a foreign language to establish a Russian translation business. She has been running Talk Russian in the UK for 20 years and has been featured in various media publications as well as on the radio as a language expert. In 2018 she received the ITI award for the best performance on an interpreting assignment. Yelena is a committee member of the Interpreters’ Development Network.

Daniel Hahn OBE

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with eighty-something books to his name. He is currently translating a Brazilian children's book. In 2021, he was awarded the ITI's John Sykes Memorial Prize.

Agata McCrindle

Agata is a Polish MITI translator and MITI interpreter. Her professional experience and academic background are in international business and law. In 2020 she won the Best Performance on a translation assignment award from the ITI for a legal assignment and in 2022 she received a special commendation in the Mentor of the year class of the ITI Awards for business mentoring.

Heather Stacey

After graduating from Heriot-Watt University with an MA in Translation and Interpreting, Heather Stacey has been providing translation, interpreting, editing and research services from German, Russian and French for over 20 years. She specialises in human rights and development, healthcare, social policy, theatre and the arts. Her clients include government agencies, NGOs, publishers, museums and arts organisations.

In 2018 Heather won ITI’s award for Best Translation Performance in recognition of her work on the major international exhibition and accompanying book, Luther! 95 Treasures – 95 People, organised by the Luther Memorials Foundation of Saxony Anhalt in 2017. She has been involved in the ITI Scottish Network since 2005, recently setting up a revision club with other members. She is a director of Stand International, a charity supporting international volunteering by disadvantaged young people from Scotland with projects in Belarus, Ukraine and Romania and she sings in the Russian Choir of Edinburgh.

Karen Tkaczyk

Karen grew up in the UK. She has an MChem in chemistry with French from the University of Manchester and a diploma in French and a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge. She worked in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries before moving to the US, having children, and then switching careers. She started her translation practice in in 2005. Since then Karen has been translating French into English, localizing and editing English, and training other translators, mainly in the area of scientific and technical writing and editing.

In 2017 she won ITI’s award for Best Performance on a Translation Assignment. In 2021 she made another professional shift and began working for MasterWord Services, Inc in a Sales/Account Management role. Karen is ATA-certified (French to US English) and a Fellow of the ITI (Qualified for French to UK English). She works from home in the Denver, Colorado, area.

Francesca Matteoda

Francesca Matteoda started translating in-house in 1997 and has been working as a freelance translator since 2000. She specialises in medical and pharmaceutical translations from French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish into UK English and is also a fully qualified hatha yoga instructor. She was born and raised in London’s West End, but has been living in Madrid, Spain, since 2001. She has been a qualified member of the ITI since 2007, a fellow since May this year and a mentor for ITI MedNet since 2016 and for SpanNet since 2019. In 2020 she won ITI’s Mentor of the Year award.

Emma Plested

Western Regional Group

Emma Plested is a MITI translator from Spanish to English and director of specialist translation agency Quality Languages Ltd.

For the last four years, Emma has volunteered as Joint Coordinator of the ITI’s Western Regional Group, supporting translators and interpreters across Bristol, Bath, and the West Country. The WRG is an active group that runs many social and training events; it won an ITI award in 2018 for best initiative, for hosting translation slams with local universities.

Laurence Bisot

North West Translators' Network

Laurence is a translator working from English into French, based in Warrington. She became Chair of the North West Translators’ Network in June 2020. The NWTN is a very active network and its “Social Saturdays” won the ITI Award for Best Regional Event or Initiative in 2019; it offers varied training and social events, online and face-to-face, as well as networking opportunities.

Ulrike Nichols

MedNet

Ulrike has been the coordinator of MedNet since 2019. 

The network has around 280 members and usually holds two educational events per year (talks by experts in a medical field, and translation workshops). It has two e-groups to discuss professional issues, agency queries etc., and since 2016, has also been running a successful mentoring programme.

MedNet won the ITI Award for best Network Initiative in 2017, specifically recognizing the ‘Acute Medicine Workshop’ held in September 2016 at the UCL School of Pharmacy. Two MedNet members have also been recognised as ITI Mentor of the Year: in 2019 David Beattie and the year after Francesca Matteoda. Both have been mentors for years and helped many newcomers in the field.