Conference Presenters

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Reme Bashi has been a certified court interpreter in Wisconsin since 2008.  She began her career as an interpreter and translator in Mexico at the University of Veracruz, where she majored in pedagogy. Being bilingual in English and Spanish led her to language teaching and then to translation and interpreting.  For several years she did conference interpreting, as well as interpreting for the media and government events in Mexico. In the Midwest, Bashi has interpreted in a variety of settings:  education, manufacturing, legal and community interpreting.  When she’s not interpreting, she likes to learn about new subjects, something that she considers pivotal to becoming a more proficient language access professional.  Recently she has immersed herself in hospitality, urban gardening and ancestry research.

Aimee Benavides is a federally certified and California court certified Spanish interpreter with over 20 years of experience. She is a former chair of NAJIT, having served on the board from 2017–2022. In addition to having worked extensively in court, she specializes in technical agricultural conferences and training workshops, focus groups that require simultaneous interpreting into English and educational interpreting. She is currently the co-chair of the executive committee for ASTM F43 Language Products and Services and helped to draft the recent revision to the interpreting standard.  She is currently leading the drafting committee on a standard guide for remote interpreting. She has presented various webinars and educational sessions independently, for NAJIT, ATA, as well as for TerpSummit in January 2023.

Prof. Karen Borgenheimer, MFA, is a classically trained, certified interpreter and translator who is regarded as a skilled, insightful, and versatile professional who is equally comfortable in the classroom, courtroom, and international conferences where she has interpreted for heads of state, diplomats, the Department of Defense and Homeland Security and Fortune 500 companies. Her interpreter training workshops have been a huge success in the US and Spain. Over the past 20 years she has trained hundreds of certified interpreters and interpreters in training. Karen is the owner of the Florida based company, InterpreterTranslation.com, LLC. Karen obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Translation Studies from the University of Arkansas—Fayetteville. She also completed doctoral coursework in Spanish Language and Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Karen has been a university professor for 30 years and a T&I professor at Florida International University (Miami) for 20 years.

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Sandra Caldwell has been active in the court interpreter profession for over 25 years. As with many of us who are blessed to be part of this profession, her career has spanned over a wide variety of interpreting locations and opportunities in the US and Mexico. Although she has a formal education with two degrees from New Mexico State University, her background prior to becoming an interpreter was in law enforcement, as part of the Las Cruces Police Department for three (3) years and the New Mexico State Police for twelve (12) years. She is a private practice court interpreter, certified in the State of New Mexico and has enjoyed being a working interpreter as well as recruiting, training and mentoring interpreter candidates. She has also been a proctor for  the interpreter certification exam during the first 10 or 15 years of her career. Ms. Caldwell is also a past chair of the Court Interpreter Advisory Committee for the State of NM and is a past presenter for NAJIT and other professional court interpreter conferences.

Javier Castillo is President of Castillo Language Services, Inc., in Greenville, NC. He is an interpreter, translator, consultant and internationally recognized speaker.   He is a federally certified court interpreter, a NC AOC certified court interpreter, a certified medical interpreter (CCHI) and contract interpreter for the US Department of State, routinely interpreting for international delegations and high-level speakers across the United States and abroad. Javier is a frequent speaker and trainer at national and international conferences. He is the president of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters (CATI), chair of the Board of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) and head of the US Chapter of the International Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators (IAPTI), as well as an active member of the American Translators Association.

Since 1989, Xosé Castro Roig has been working as a freelance English translator and proofreader. He has participated as coordinator, translator or proofreader in dozens of software translations. He has translated and adapted advertising material, multimedia and educational videos for the U.S. Hispanic population and for the Spanish-speaking market in general. He has also translated a large number of series and movies for film and television, both for dubbing and subtitling, especially for the European market. He is an advisor to the Centro Virtual Cervantes of the Instituto Cervantes and an active member of the ATA and Asetrad. He was co-editor of the glossary of computer terms in the style guide of the newspaper El País; he is the creator and moderator of TRAG, the largest discussion list for Spanish-speaking audiovisual translators, and is a member of the editorial board of Panacea, the medical language magazine.

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Agustín Servín de la Mora is the President of DE LA MORA Interpreter Training. He was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico, and has been a professional interpreter for 30 years, both as a freelance and as a staff interpreter. He is one of the supervisor raters for the National Center for State Courts and has been a lead rater for the federal and consortium oral exams for court interpreters. He was the lead interpreter for the Ninth Judicial Circuit for over a decade, and served as a member of the Project Advisory Committee responsible for the creation of the National Standards for Healthcare Interpreter Training Programs for the NCIHC. He was a member of the Florida Court Interpreter Certification Board and a voting member of the Technical Committee of the National Consortium for Interpreter Certification. He is a state and federally certified court interpreter, as well as a certified medical interpreter. He has been a consultant for the National Center for State Courts for 20 years.

John Di Rico began translating in 2005 and specializes in legal, financial, and marketing translation from French to English. He currently works as the Sales and Marketing Manager for Wordfast and runs a small translation business—ApexTra—in France. He is a sworn translator and interpreter for the French courts (traducteur-interprète assermenté), member of the French translation professional association (Société Française des Traducteurs).  He has an MA in Translation and Localization Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). John is a certified trainer for adult education and has been offering professional training for translators since 2006. He has taught more than 600 translators how to use CAT tools, how to manage their time, and how to manage translation projects. John is currently teaching project management for the online Master in Technical Communication and Localization (TCLoc) and Master in Multilingual Web Communication programs at the University of Strasbourg.

Nora Díaz is an English-Spanish translator and conference interpreter who enjoys using technology and finding ways to increase productivity, which combines with her love of teaching and has led her to share what she has learned through a blog, articles, webinars and workshops. Nora is a certified RWS trainer, currently serves on the board of the Organización Mexicana de Traductores and is the chair of the American Translators Association Professional Development Committee. She is also one of the co-organizers of the Innovation in Translation Summit and the Innovation in Interpreting Summit. She has recently co-authored a book called The Translator’s Tool Box.

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Dr. David Gilbert is an Australian lawyer and a certified professional Vietnamese translator. He served with the Royal Australian Navy as an electronic warfare specialist and cryptologic linguist, participating in numerous Australia-UK-US special intelligence operations. He has held permanent positions in various government departments in areas of security and intelligence as an intelligence manager, linguist, analyst and as a forensic translator. His first PhD investigated Australia’s foreign language capability relied upon to meet national security objectives. He is currently undertaking his second PhD (law) researching legal processes associated with translated transcripts used as evidence in court. Dr. Gilbert has presented at international universities and conferences on the topics of investigative interviewing and interpreting, national security language capability, evidence law and forensic translation. Dr. Gilbert holds military awards for active service during the Gulf War and submarine special operations during the Cold War. His hobbies include physical fitness and visual art.

Albert Gómez-Font is a former director of the Instituto Cervantes in Rabat (Morocco) and was General Coordinator of the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu) until 2012. He was also a corresponding member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and a stylist in the Department of Urgent Spanish of the Agencia EFE (Madrid) from its foundation in 1980 until its transformation into Fundéu BBVA in 2005. He has been a professor, since 1990, for the courses of modernization of administrative language, organized by the Ministry of Public Administration (MAP) of Spain. He is a professor, since 2001, in the “Agency Journalism” master’s degree courses organized by the EFE Agency.  He is also the author of more than 20 books related to the use of language, the creator of the Apuntes forum and an organizer and participant in many international congresses on language.

Mylène M. Green is a federally and state certified court interpreter in California. Born in Santiago, Chile, Mylene has grown up with latin rhythms and enjoys an active lifestyle. Interpreting and fitness are two of her passions and she enjoys sharing them. Mylene holds licenses in the following formats: Zumba Basic, Zumba Toning, Zumba Sentao, Zumba Step, Strong by Zumba, R.I.P.P.E.D. and Cardio Sculpt.  She is a fitness instructor at Crunch Fitness.

Elizabeth Guinle-Salter started her career in Australia and holds a Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation (Spanish <> English) from Macquarie University, Sydney. She is a NAATI certified professional translator > English and a certified medical interpreter, NBCMI. As a medical interpreter at Yale New Haven Hospital, she facilitated and presented seminars for language services. She interpreted for Yale University Law School Immigration Clinic and has an interest in interpreter wellness and client/patient safety. Now, as Medical Interpreter and Translator at Stanford Health Care, Elizabeth continues her educational activities and has developed protocols and a presentation on sexual violence cases for staff training. She has presented for NCHIC Trainers Webinar Series, for ATA and CHIA, focusing her topics on the preservation and protection of interpreter health. Elizabeth is a board member of the California Healthcare Interpreting Association, and Education Committee Chair.

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Tamber Hilton is a federally certified Spanish interpreter, entrepreneur, and immigration lawyer. In addition to court interpreting and immigration law, she has a fascination with business law and the tools that it offers to empower freelance small business owners to make the most out of their livelihoods. She is a serial optimizer who has formed three LLCs of her own, shopped for insurance, hired tax preparers, accountants, and lawyers, done taxes the hardest ways possible and is on a quest to find the Holy Grail of the easiest way possible. She never stops looking for ways to run her small businesses more efficiently and is a firm believer that financial security and predictability can and should exist for self-employed business owners.

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Judy Jenner is a Spanish and German business and legal translator and a federally certified Spanish court interpreter and conference interpreter. She has an MBA in marketing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a master’s degree in conference interpreting from York University in Canada, and runs her boutique translation and interpreting business, Twin Translations, with her twin sister,  Dagmar. She was born in Austria and grew up in Mexico City. She is a former in-house translation department manager. She writes the blog , Translation Times, and the “Entrepreneurial Linguist” column for The ATA Chronicle, serves as one of the ATA spokespersons, and teaches interpretation at the University of California, San Diego and at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the co-author of The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business School Approach to Freelance Translation. She’s a frequent speaker at T&I conferences around the world, mostly online these days. Pre-pandemic, she flew a lot for her interpreting assignments and one of her special talents is memorizing airport codes.

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Katty Kauffman is a seasoned conference and court interpreter, a member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and TAALS and an instructor at York University’s graduate school (Glendon MCI). Trained in Chile and the United States, her extensive conference experience includes presidential summits, general assemblies of international organizations, and countless events for the private sector. She regularly provides services in person and online to the U.S. Department of State, the OAS and ECLAC, among others. In the judicial field, in addition to her work as a freelancer in New York, Miami and the Washington, DC metro area, she has served on staff at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Jason Knapp is a freelance interpreter and translator specializing in legal, medical, and business subject matter. Clients include private attorneys, law firms, state and federal agencies, and medical research institutions. He has interpreted in person and remotely (RSI) for conferences in the insurance/reinsurance business, commercial real estate development, automotive, petrochemical, and labor relations sectors. He holds a postgraduate diploma in Conference Interpreting (USAL).  He is a state and federally certified court interpreter, nationally certified medical interpreter, and ATA certified translator for ES>EN. He is involved in the profession as an active member of professional associations such as ATA, NAJIT, IAPTI, NLSC, and the Asociación Argentina de Traductores e Intérpretes (AATI).

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Jessie Liu is a freelance court certified mandarin interpreter in the State of California. A year into interpreting in the courtrooms, Jessie went back to school to train as a conference interpreter. Upon graduating with a master’s degree in conference interpreting from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) in 2021, Jessie has since been actively serving clients in both legal and conference settings. In addition to holding periodic workshops on court interpreting, Jessie also teaches the English and Chinese Court Interpreting Program at UCLA Extension. When Jessie isn’t doing her interpreting or teaching work, she is actively advocating for the T&I profession by volunteering her time at the American Translators Association. She is currently serving on the ATA’s Strategy Committee and the ATA’s Membership Committee. She is also on the leadership council of the Chinese Language Division of ATA. Jessie hosts the Chinese Language Division podcast in which she invites professionals in the T&I field to talk about the most important and trending issues.

Marilyn Lovo is a national expert on language access. She is a Senior Language Access Manager at Ayuda, a nonprofit organization that provides legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants in the DC Metropolitan area. She supervises a team of Coordinators responsible for administering publicly funded interpreter banks, ensuring that nonprofits in the District and surrounding jurisdictions can serve all clients, regardless of the languages they use to communicate. She recruits and selects interpreters to work in community, legal, and victim services settings. She designs, coordinates, and delivers training for professionals on best practices regarding interpretating, language access, and using Ayuda’s interpreter banks. She arranges interpretation and translation for 100 nonprofit organizations throughout Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Marilyn has nearly nine years of experience in the language access field, advocating for limited-English and Deaf and Hard of Hearing clients, and has delivered presentations at numerous local and national conferences.

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Antonio Martín graduated in Hispanic Philology at UCM. In 1997 he founded CÁLAMO&CRAN, the center for professional applications of language and publishing. He is a member of the quartet PALABRAS MAYORES, a member of the editorial committee of ARCHILETRAS, and one of the organizers of the ENCLARO meetings. He is co-author of El libro rojo de C&C (C&C, Madrid, 2013), 199 recetas infalibles para expresarse bien (Vox, Barcelona, 2015), Dilo bien y dilo claro (Larousse, Barcelona, 2017), and author of La mano invisible (CSIC, Madrid, 2019). He has directed the PUBLISHNEWS media since 2015, a daily reference in the Spanish publishing world. From 2005 to 2015 he chaired the professional association of proofreaders that he founded, UniCo. In 2018 he contributed to the creation of the first professional association of proofreaders in the United States, SEA. In 2007 he was recognized as an honorary member of La Casa del Corrector, of the Litterae Foundation. In June 2022 he was appointed PLAIN’s ambassador in Spain.

Rosario Patricio Martinez is a native of Oaxaca, Mexico.  She is a writer, poet, translator, interpreter and activist.  Ayuuk (Mixe) and Spanish are her working languages.  She has a bachelor’s degree in law and is a published author and translator. Currently she is the president of Pluralidad Indigena, an organization that promotes the use of native languages of Mexico and also advocates for the rights of native peoples.

Christopher D. Mellinger is an associate professor of Spanish Interpreting and Translation Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Mellinger received his Ph.D. in Translation Studies and M.A. in Translation (Spanish) from Kent State University. He also holds certificates in Spanish-English interpreting as well as translation and localization management from Wake Forest University. He is the co-editor of the journal, Translation and Interpreting Studies (John Benjamins), co-editor of Translating Texts: An Introductory Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 2020), and co-author of Quantitative Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies. He has been involved in ASTM to revise the language interpreting standard (F2089) and is collaborating on a proposal for a new standard on remote interpreting.

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Gustavo Negrete is the current chair of the NBCMI and has previously served as the secretary of the National Board. He is president and CEO of a micro interpreting and translation company and is the new managing director of TransInterpreting. He is a certified HIPAA Privacy Expert and has over twenty years of experience in health care, having served in several clinical roles and departments prior to becoming an interpreter. He is a staunch advocate for language access, LEP rights and the interpreting profession as an active participant in organizations who lobby and or promote these causes.

Ernest Niño-Murcia is a freelance interpreter and translator based in Des Moines, Iowa.  Both state and federally certified, he has interpreted legal proceedings and prepared translations, transcriptions, and expert witness reports/testimony for clients in the private and public sectors. As a speaker and trainer, he has presented live and online sessions through organizations including NAJIT, the University of Arizona’s National Center for Interpretation, and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others. Ernest is a member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and is a Jeopardy! Champion (2012), whose greatest achievement on the show was beating an attorney to the buzzer to answer “co-defendant” in the “11 letter words” category.

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Janis Palma is an English-Spanish interpreter and translator, certified by the federal courts in 1981, certified by NAJIT as an interpreter and translator in 2004, and licensed by the State of Texas as a master court interpreter as of 2017. She holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. from the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto y el Caribe in San Juan. She is a NAJIT Life Member since 2006, was a Board Member between 2020 and 2022, and chair of the board for the 2021-22 term. Ms. Palma has been teaching and training judiciary interpreters since 1986 and has written extensively on subjects related to judiciary interpreting. She is now working towards a master’s in Legal Studies (MLS) at Arizona State University.

Nattalia Paterson, originally from Brazil, is a full-time Portuguese interpreter. Certified by the NCSC and CCHI, she is also federally qualified and a conference interpreter. She provides in person and remote services to a multitude of clients across the United States and abroad, including corporate clients, government agencies, academic and non-profit organizations. In Brazil, Nattalia earned a B.A. in Language and Literature, with a specialization in translation and conference Interpretation, from PUC-Rio. In the United States, at Northwestern University, she earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics with a focus on the cognitive sciences. She also works as a translator and is based in Chicago.

James Plunkett III is a nationally known interpreter instructor and trainer of trainers. He also trains judges and court staff on how to work with court interpreters. He is certified by the AOUSC as a Spanish and English court interpreter. He is a rater for a national credentialing program for interpreters. In his 28 years of professional experience, he has worked as a court interpreter for the 13th Judicial Circuit in Florida and as the Coordinator of Interpreting Services and the Language Access Program for the District of Columbia Courts. He is staff interpreter of the U.S. District Court, based in Tampa, FL. He trains interpreters in state and federal programs nationwide and through online teaching platforms. He holds a BA degree in General Social Studies from Providence College. He was raised in Lima, Peru. He also communicates in Portuguese, intermediate French and basic American Sign Language and Mandarin.

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Tianlu Jia Redmon is a Texas master licensed court interpreter for Mandarin, a contract interpreter for U.S. federal courts, and an ATA-certified English-into-Chinese and Chinese-into-English translator. She loves geeking out over languages and the law, and she enjoys theater and the performances of good trial lawyers in real life. Tianlu is the president of Tianlu Chinese Language and Culture, LLC, and has held various leadership positions in local and national translator and interpreter associations.

Tony Rosado is a conference and court/legal interpreter with over 35 years of experience in interpreting all over the world. An attorney from Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City, he has worked internationally as a conference interpreter, and  has interpreted for high profile conferences, court proceedings, sports events, and TV broadcasts, including presidential debates and political conventions. He has worked with many top-level politicians, celebrities, athletes, and entrepreneurs. The author of two books on court interpreting, he is a visiting professor at various universities in the U.S. and overseas. He is also a well-known conference presenter, a United States Department of State independent contractor at the conference-level, a court interpreter certified by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and several States, as well as  the current chair of AIIC-USA Regional Bureau, chair of the Ethics Committee of IAPTI, and the author of the popular blog, The Professional Interpreter.

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Francesca Samuel is a freelance interpreter/translator and founder and president of A la Carte Translations, a web-based translation business. She has been a member of NAJIT and ATA since 1999. Francesca is a Pima College Translation and Interpreting Program graduate with 22+ years of experience as an immigration court contract interpreter and approximately 30 years of experience as a translator. Francesca is an avid volunteer and passionate about the profession. She has presented on immigration, business management, scam prevention, and social media at annual FIT, NAJIT, CFI, ATA, and ATI conferences. She served as administrator of the Spanish Language Division of the American Translators Assoc. from 2012-2016 and president of Arizona Translators and Interpreters (ATI) during the same period. Currently, Francesca serves on several committees and boards, which include president of Arizona Translators and Interpreters, chair of the Hospitality/Public Relations committee and member of the Professional Development of the ATA Spanish Division, chair of the Training and Education committee of NAJIT, co-chair of the conference planning committee and member of its Social Media committee.

Sarah L. Schneider, MS, CCC-SLP is an assistant professor and the Speech Pathology Director  of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery – at the University of California, San Francisco. She is co-director of the UCSF Voice and Swallowing Center where she practices inter-professionally, providing clinical care across the spectrum of voice and upper airway disorders. She lectures nationally and internationally, plans continuing education courses and has authored several scholarly research  publications. She is the Professional Development Manager for the Voice and Upper Airway Disorders group of ASHA, is on the Voice Committee for the International Associated of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP), and a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice.

Gabriela Siebach, Director of Interpreting Services at Cesco Linguistic Services, has accumulated more than 15 years of professional experience. She has spearheaded the development of multiple training and assessment programs throughout her career. Gabriela holds a graduate degree in Spanish translation and interpretation from the world-renowned Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. A former board member of the NCIHC (2019-2021), she currently leads various council initiatives as co-chair of the Policy, Education and Research Committee. Gabriela also co-chairs the AAITE Job Task Analysis Committee and is a member of ATA, CATI (her local ATA Chapter), NAJIT, and ASTM.