Presenters

More presenter information will be added as soon as it becomes available.

Karen Bontempo (Australia)

Karen has 20 years experience as an Auslan (Australian Sign Language) / English interpreter, and has worked as an interpreter educator for 13 years in Australia. Karen is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, where she is a member of the Sign Language Linguistics Group, the Applied Linguistics and Language in Education Group, and the Centre for Translation and Interpreting Research. She holds academic qualifications in psychology, education and linguistics. Karen is an examiner for the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) in Australia, and currently chairs the national interpreter education sub-committee of the Australian Sign Language Interpreters' Association.



Ester Bot (Netherlands)

Ester Bot is a Registered Dutch Sign Language Interpreter. She works as an interpreter trainer at the Institute for Sign, Language & Deafstudies (IGTD) at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences since 1997. She has worked as an interpreter in different kinds of national settings. Besides interpreting she has also worked as a speech therapist, for instance working with (deaf) children.

Charlene Crump (USA)

Charlene Crump, B.S., CI/CT, ASLTA-Q, QMHI, is the state Coordinator for Interpreting and Communication Access with the Office of Deaf Services, Alabama Department of Mental Health. In this capacity, Ms. Crump has been responsible for developing the Mental Health Interpreter Training initiative and developing certification standards that have been adopted by DMH and Alabama State Code. Her work in Mental Health Interpreter training has received national recognition including by the National Alliance of Mentally Ill (NAMI) and was cited by Dr. Neil Glickman, Director of the Deaf Inpatient Program at the Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts, as "establishing the national benchmark" for mental health interpreting. Charlene is a frequent presenter and consultant at various national and state venues, presenting on mental health interpreting. She created and operates several listservs and moderates a monthly online discussion forum related to current research in mental health and deafness/interpreting through Jacksonville State University's distance program.

Charlene is Adjunct Instructor, teaching sign language classes at Auburn University at Montgomery. She is a member of the National Coalition on Mental Health and Deaf Individuals (NCMHDI) an affiliate of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. Charlene currently serves as an executive board member of the ADARA and also as president of the Alabama Chapter of the American Sign Language Teacher's Association (ASLTA), serves as and advisory member of Interpreter Training Program at Troy University, assisted in the passage of a state law that recognizes American Sign Language as a foreign language in K-12 settings. Additionally, she served a six-year stint with the first cohort appointed to the Alabama Licensure Board of Interpreters and Transliterators and served two terms as Chair. Charlene is a contributor to the National Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) Standard Practice Paper focusing on Mental Health Interpreting and has served on several expert focus groups regarding mental health interpreting. She is a Local Testing Administrator for the RID Testing System, RID Certificate Maintenance Program (CMP) Administrator and serves as the Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) coordinator for the department.

Maya de Wit (Netherlands)

Maya de Wit is a qualified RID Certified ASL interpreter, Registered Dutch Sign Language Interpreter and International Sign Interpreter. She has given international presentations on the status of sign language interpreting in Europe, such as at the Council of Europe High Level Conference (Croatia, 2007) and WFD congress (Madrid, 2007).

In September 2009 Maya was re-elected president of the European Forum of Sign Language Interpreters (efsli). In 2008 she received an honorary award from the Institute of Sign, Language & Deaf Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands, for her extensive contribution to the field of sign language interpreting. In 2008 she also became honorary member of the Dutch Association of Sign Language Interpreting (NBTG). She is currently working on her MA in the European Masters of Sign Language Interpreting (EUMASLI).

Jen Dodds (UK)

Jen has worked in the British Deaf community for many years, initially as a journalist/editor with publications such as British Deaf News, Read Hear, The Voice, Deaf Arts UK, and as associate editor of Deaf Worlds: International Journal of Deaf Studies. She also worked as a research assistant at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN); as a language tutor with Deaf students at the same establishment; and as a freelance BSL/English translator . Nowadays, Jen is a partner at Team HaDo with Claire Haddon, offering services such as BSL/English translation and interpreting, proofreading, editing and copywriting. She has a first degree in Media Production and has just successfully completed the UCLAN Postgraduate Diploma in British Sign Language/English Interpreting and Translation.

Sandra Dowe (UK)

Sandra Dowe is the granddaughter of profoundly deaf grandparents and trained as a teacher of hearing children, then at Manchester as a teacher of deaf children. After teaching for 15 years she became head of service for deaf children in Bedfordshire and advised the county on introducing signing and deaf staff into units for deaf children attached to mainstream schools. She organised the Btec Communication Support Worker with Deaf People (CSW) course at Barnfield College, Luton and set up a voluntary organisation 'Deaf Support' linking CSWs and educational establishments together. After completing an MSc in Human Communication at City University she currently assists deaf colleagues with who teach BSL levels 1 -4.

Lindsay Ferrara (Australia)

Lindsay is a PhD student at Macquarie University, working on the Medical Signbank project. Lindsay's PhD research investigates the linguistic structure of health-related discourse among Deaf, native Auslan users. Lindsay completed her Masters degree at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC where she studied for three years on a variety of topics related to the linguistics of signed languages. Her current research interests include language acquisition, signed-spoken language bilingualism, and signed language phonology.

Christine Gannon (USA)

Christine Gannon, MS.ED. is the Professional Development Manager at Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania. She received her Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Human Sexuality Education and has been doing sexuality-related education/training since 1995. She presently coordinates and oversees the Sexuality Program for the Deaf. She has extensive experience working with the Deaf community and currently focuses her energies on training professionals, including interpreters, teachers and human service professionals. Two of her articles on sexuality and the Deaf have been published in professional journals. She is also a CODA, child of Deaf adults.

Claire Haddon (UK)

Claire is a registered qualified BSL/English interpreter and currently combines running a successful translation and interpreting business with her partner, Jen Dodds, with working at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Claire took a degree in Experimental Psychology at Somerville College, Oxford, before deciding to pursue a career in interpreting, completing a Postgraduate Diploma in BSL/English interpreting in July 2004.

Claire now specialises in translating into written English and has a particular interest in Higher Education and research-based interpreting. Her academic experience includes co-authoring a chapter on telephone interpreting, in the book Advances in Teaching Sign Language Interpreters, by Cynthia Roy (ed) 2005 and co-presenting a keynote paper on Language Tutors at the 2005 Supporting Deaf People conference. She is delighted to return, this time more controversially!

Ali Hetherington (UK)

Tom Holcomb (USA)

Thomas K. Holcomb comes from a multigenerational Deaf family. His parents, grandparents, children, and grandson are all Deaf. Currently, Tom is Professor of Deaf Studies at Ohlone College in Fremont, California where he teaches courses related to Deaf Culture to both deaf and hearing students. Previously, he taught at San Jose State University and National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York.

He is well known for his dynamic presentation style which he uses to bring together deaf and hearing cultures. His collaborations with Anna Mindess have resulted in several exciting teaching tools including two DVDs, A Sign Of Respect: Strategies for Effective Deaf/Hearing Interactions and See What I Mean: Differences Between Deaf and Hearing Cultures, a Cultural Detective training module on Deaf Culture, and a book entitled Reading Between the Signs. He is also an accomplished storyteller and is the featured performer in the Boys Town Press videotape series, Read With Me: Stories for Your Deaf child. In addition, his book, Deaf Culture, Our Way illustrates the unique experiences of deaf people living in the mainstream. It is now considered a classic in deaf literature.

Tom's academic credentials include a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Gallaudet University, Master's degree in Career and Human Resources Development from Rochester Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from University of Rochester. He was honored with the Stephen M. Ryan Teacher of the Year Award from the American Sign Language Teacher Association in 2002.

Jack Hoza (USA)

Jack Hoza, Ph.D., CSC, CI, CT, is a native ASL/English bilingual in that his parents and two of his brothers are Deaf. He is Associate Professor and Director of the Bachelor's degree program in Sign Language Interpretation at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. RID Press is publishing his new book, Team Interpreting as Collaboration and Interdependence, in early 2010. His book It's Not What You Sign, It's How You Sign It: Politeness in American Sign Language (2007) is available from Gallaudet University Press and his book The Interpreter's Guide to Life: 365 Tips for Interpreters (2003) is available from Sign Media.



Kati Huhtinen (Finland)

Kati Huhtinen is a Finnish Sign Language Interpreter. She completed her first interpreter training, a one-year training programme, in 1986. She has since upgraded her interpreter education twice; in 1996 she received her diploma from a three-year interpreter education and in 2003 she got her BA in Sign Language Interpretation. She has also pursued studies of general linguistics and Finnish Sign Language at the universities of Helsinki and Jyväskylä, respectively.

She has worked as a sign language interpreter in a wide variety of national and international settings, in different kinds of interpreter chains (deaf, hearing, spoken and signed languages, national and international signs). Her working languages are Finnish, Finnish Sign Language, English and International Sign. Besides interpreting she has also worked as a sign language researcher, been involved in development co-operation, and worked in an ESR-funded remote interpreting project. Currently she's employed as an interpreter trainer at the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences in Turku, Finland.

Raili Loit (Estonia)

Raili obtained an MA in Special Education/Speech-Language Pathology in 2003 and School Management Mentorship from Tartu University in 2008. A board member of the Estonian Association of Sign Language Interpreters Association since 2005, she qualified as an Estonian Sign Language interpreter since 2006. Currently she is working as a Sign Language interpreter and a special needs teacher at the Tallinn Helen`s School.

She is mainly involved in interpreting educational settings and in issues concerning second language acquisition. She has also been involved in tutoring the sign language interpreter trainees of Tartu University. At the moment also working at the international project IISE (Training Sign Language Interpreters International Settings) as a local coordinator and a representative of the Estonian Association of Sign Language Interpreters.

George Major (Australia)

George is a PhD student at Macquarie University, working on the Medical Signbank project. George's related PhD research is on the discourse of Auslan/English interpreter-mediated general practice consultations. George qualified as a New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) interpreter in 2004, and has research experience in workplace communication, particularly in the healthcare setting, and NZSL sociolinguistics. She is currently the Australasia & Oceania regional representative on the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) Board.

Karen Malcolm (Canada)

Karen Malcolm is a Canadian certified interpreter and interpreter educator who has been interpreting for 28 years, specializing in mental health and medical settings for the last 18. She has been teaching interpreting to both novice and experienced interpreters for 20 years, and holds a Masters of Science in Education (Teaching Interpreting) from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College). She has taught workshops and courses throughout Canada and the U.S., including a year at Gallaudet University, in the M.A. in Interpretation program. She is currently faculty in the Program of Sign Language Interpretation at Douglas College, New Westminster, BC.



Anna Mindess (USA)

Anna Mindess, MA, CSC, SC:L, has worked as a freelance sign language interpreter in California for 30 years. She is the author of Reading Between the Signs: Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters, which is used in interpreter training programs worldwide. Anna has been invited to give lectures and workshops across the U.S. and abroad about the ways that differences between Deaf and Hearing cultures affect interpreted situations. Anna and partner Thomas Holcomb have created two popular DVDs: A Sign of Respect: Strategies for Effective Deaf/Hearing Interactions and See What I Mean: Differences between Deaf and Hearing Cultures. They are also co-authors of Cultural Detective: Deaf Culture in the Cultural Detective online training series.

Geoff Minshull (Technical Support)

Geoff works for Direct Learn Services. He has been in further education since 1983, mainly in the UK, during which time he has worked with a wide range of businesses and organisations. He has also worked and lectured extensively in Southern Africa, Central America, and the USA. Geoff has been involved in online education for many years, and has worked with LEAs, colleges and universities, as well as national educational organisations. He has been running online conferences and other online events since 2001. His first degree was from Sussex University in Economics, and he has an MSc from Loughborough University in Computers and Education.

Judith Mole (Conference chair)

Judith founded Direct Learn Services in 2001 after working in education since 1992. A graduate of the University of Derby, she started working with Deaf students while at college and has since managed support units for Deaf students both at Sheffield Hallam University and at the University of Wolverhampton, where she was also a member of the board of governors. She has worked both in the higher and further education sector. She has managed a number of projects for the University of Wolverhampton which created online BSL/English dictionaries for art, science and engineering as well as a BSL/English dictionary for ICT for the DfES Standards Unit. She has written a number of publications and books on supporting Deaf students. Judith has a first degree in Drama, Film and Television Studies as well as a PG Cert in TESOL from Sheffield Hallam University.

Kelly Murphy (USA)

As the Irish are known as the "Kings of Cursing" (Wajnryb, 2005), Kelly Murphy has taken full advantage of her heritage, from the perspective of the interpreting profession, and made it her passion. Beginning her work midway through her studies at the College of Saint Catherine in Saint Paul, Minnesota, she has conducted two studies of her own as well as consulted with some of the top profanity researchers in the world. She believes that a profanity education is valuable for interpreters and other professionals working with deaf populations. Kelly has attained a Bachelors degree in Interpreting from the College of Saint Catherine, presented on the local, regional and international level; has been published in the RID Views and and the Journal of Interpretation. She has worked for the Commission Serving Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans, a political advocacy organization working towards equal opportunity for those populations and that experience has fostered a strong belief in the independence of the individual. She is currently working as a community, private practice interpreter.

Jemina Napier (Australia)

Jemina Napier gained her PhD in Linguistics from Macquarie University in Sydney, where she now manages the suite of Translation and Interpreting programs in the Department of Linguistics, and teaches in the graduatesprograms in Auslan/English Interpreting and Translation and Interpreting Pedagogy.

Jemina has over 20 years experience of signed language interpreting and over 13 years experience as an interpreter educator. Her major research interest is in the field of signed language interpreting, but her wider interests include effective translation and interpreting pedagogy, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. She has published books, book chapters and articles discussing aspects of signed language interpreting and interpreting pedagogy. Jemina is Chief Investigator with A/Prof Trevor Johnston on the Medical Signbank project.

Lynette Reep (USA)

Lynette Reep, CI and CT, has taught dozens of workshops on ethics and empowerment for interpreters across the United States and in Canada since 2004. She attended Northeastern University's "Basic Interpreter Training Program" in Boston before the widespread advent of four-year training programs, and credits her current abilities as well as her emphasis on collegial support and collaboration to the extensive informal mentoring she received from experienced interpreters and Deaf consumers early on. A strong believer in the importance of drawing on both internal and external resources, her teaching strives to recognise and support colleagues at every level of experience.

Linda Squelch (UK)

Linda Squelch is profoundly deaf and is the daughter of deaf parents. She has a hearing sister who is an interpreter in Australia. BSL is Linda's first language and she has gained a University Certificate in Sign Linguistics and CACDP BSL level 4. She is a qualified teacher of BSL and currently teaches level 1and 2 in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and London. Linda is co-author with Frances Elton of London and south East Regional Signs (2008) published by Lexisigns. Linda and a deaf colleague have set up an organisation named 'Signslink' that provides BSL levels 3 and 4 to students in Hertfordshire and surrounding counties. Linda has provided signed illustrations for handouts, booklets and a workbook for primary aged children learning BSL in London and the South East.

Dr Valerie van Loggerenberg (Australia)

Valerie holds a Doctor of Psychology degree, and has studied and worked in a number of industries from health to law. Her academic qualifications are in both psychology and business. She has had involvement in counselling, training, multicultural affairs and business management. Valerie has been the State Manager of the Western Australian office of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) for over 7 years. During that time she has initiated many new workshops for NAATI. Valerie's work experience includes local and overseas work in Perth, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Erika Zeegers (Netherlands)

Interpreting theater, art and culture is what she likes to do most. Erika uses interpreting in the theater not only to make theater accessible but also as a public relations tool. Aware of the complicated role that SLI's sometimes fulfil she is also eager to look deeper into ourselves and the reason of our behaviour as intepreters. The ultimate goal is to raise the level of interpreting, especially when it comes to our personal attitude.

Erika is doing her Masters degree in Deaf Studies at the University of Applied Science, Utrecht. She is concentrating on attitude, identity and self reflection.