Guest Speakers

Rudy Heller

Rudy Heller, an ATA-certified English>Spanish translator, has been a grader for ATA’s English>Spanish certification exam for over 12 years. He is a federally certified court interpreter and a former ATA director. In this presentation, he will share his insights as a professional translator and interpreter with over 40 years of experience.

He will talk about the profession as both a linguist and a company owner. He will give us advice on developing one’s professional skills and building professional relationships. He will also touch upon the question of language variations in translation.

Gerry Dunn
Gerry Dunn is a Spanish/English literary translator specializing in fiction, gender, art and immigration. His work has been published by the New Press, the Feminist Press, Columbia University Press, Amazon Crossing and Editorial RM, and in 2020 he received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant to translate Lectura fácil by Cristina Morales for Penguin.

He has an M.A. in Hispanic Language and Literature and a B.A. in English Literature, both from Boston University. He also takes on commercial translation jobs between literary projects, mostly for museums and academic institutions.

Michael Wong-Russell
Revision of Texts/Language Teaching & Translation

Dr. Michael E. Wong-Russell has had extensive teaching and administrative experience in the modern language and literature programs of Chicago area public schools, the Hong Kong International School, Boston University and Framingham State University. During his tenure at Boston University he additionally taught in the language department’s Summer Abroad Program in Madrid, and was awarded a translation prize by the University Professors Program as well as a Humanities Foundation fellowship to conduct research in Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

After a 46 year teaching career, Dr. Wong-Russell is now Professor Emeritus at Framingham State University, where he taught Spanish language and Hispanic literature courses. He additionally served as advisor for the M.Ed. in Spanish and Post Baccalaureate Teacher Licensure programs, as well as Sigma Delta Pi, the national collegiate Spanish honor society. He received the Distinguished Faculty of the Year award from the University in 2010.

Currently, Dr. Wong-Russell is an editor for Advantage Links (Tokyo), reviewing and redacting professional writing in the fields of academic research, cultural affairs, art and architecture.

Millie Rutkiewicz
CAT Tools / SDL Trados Studio

Millie is both a State of Florida and State of Connecticut Certified Court Interpreter by the National Center for State Courts. She is currently serving as the supervisor of the Court Interpreter Department for the 20th Judicial Circuit and before that, she was the Lead Court Interpreter in Charge of the Translations Unit at the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Interpreter and Translation Services.

She also provided interpreting services for a private attorney involved in federal cases for the state of Rhode Island. Millie has been working as an interpreter for over 20 years. She obtained her Certificate in Spanish/English Translation from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2013.

Jenna Abriola
Translation in Educational Settings

Jenna Abriola graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston Translation Certificate Program last year. Since finishing the program, Jenna has been working as a translator and proofreader in the education-related field. During this informal conversation, she will share her experience of translating in educational settings, as well as applying the skills gained during the program in her professional practice.

Montserrat Zuckerman
Medical/Court Interpreting

Montserrat Zuckerman is a translator and interpreter, professions she has worked in for the past 20 years. She holds a Certificate in Translation Studies from Indiana University, as well as a BA in Biology and a BS in Nursing. After graduating from high school in Venezuela, her family moved to the United States; her first language is Spanish. She has always had an interest in languages and, in addition to courses in Spanish literature, she took courses in French, Portuguese and Swedish while in college.

Montserrat started her interpreting career as a medical interpreter and until recently was a Certified Healthcare Interpreter™.

She moved from medical to court interpreting and participated as an instructor in Indiana’s court interpreter program after obtaining that state’s court interpreter certification. In 2013, Montserrat earned the court interpreter certification in the state of Massachusetts and has worked since that time as an interpreter for the Massachusetts Office of Court Interpreter Services.

Richard Moss
Website Construction

Richard Moss is a London-based software engineer who has worked for several companies, including the educational tech start-up ReactJS Academy. He specializes in Javascript and React, and currently works as a principal engineer at Sainsbury’s.

Alicia Borinsky
Literary Translation

Alicia Borinsky is a fiction writer, poet and literary critic who has published extensively in English and Spanish in the United States, Latin America and Europe.

Her most recent books are Low Blows/Golpes Bajos (short fictions), Frivolous Women and Other Sinners (poetry), both published bilingually, and One Way Tickets: Writers and the Culture of Exile (literary criticism).

She is the recipient of several awards, including the Latino Literature Prize for Fiction and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her research interests include the theory and practice of literary translation, trans-national cultural studies, contemporary gender and literary theory, Latino literature and the legacy of the Latin American avant-garde from Huidobro to Borges and the writers of the “Boom” to the present. She is the Director of the Summer Cultural Studies Program in Buenos Aires

Natasha Hakimi Zapata
Literary Translation

Holds a Creative Writing M.F.A. from Boston University and both a B.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in English with a creative writing concentration from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has received several awards for her work as a journalist, including three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts & Entertainment Journalism awards, as well as several other honors for her creative writing.

She has worked for the renowned literary journal AGNI, Los Angeles Magazine, and the Webby Award-winning political journal Truthdig. In 2016, Literal Publishing released bilingual editions of her translations of Alicia Borinsky’s My Husband’s Woman and Liliana Lukin’s Theater of Operations.

Verónica Garcia
Translation in Media

Verónica del Rocío García es una productora independiente. Ha trabajado por varios años como líder en su comunidad. Ha tenido la oportunidad de ingresar en el campo de radio y televisión para importantes cadenas como Univision y actualmente es conductora del programa Presencia en WGBY canal 57.

Tuvo la oportunidad de actuar en novelas en su país natal Ecuador y al llegar a los Estados Unidos condujo un programa de TV llamado de Mujer a Mujer en New Haven CT.

También ha hecho trabajos periodísticos para diferentes países como Venezuela y Ecuador, abriéndose así paso en el mundo de las comunicaciones a nivel local e internacional.