Pawlos kassu Abebe (Ethiopia)

Pawlos is Deaf and is a lecturer in the department of linguistics and philology, Ethiopian sign language and Deaf Culture at Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Pawlos hold a masters degree in Deaf Education. He has worked in Nigeria, Cameron and Ethiopia and has been involved in research and promotion of Deaf rights, sign language and Deaf Culture. He has published three books around these themes. He was also the first to produce a film in Sign Language in Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Karen Bontempo (Australia)

Karen is a practicing Auslan/English interpreter, with 20 years experience in the field. Her academic qualifications are in psychology, linguistics and education. She is a part-time PhD candidate at Macquarie University, where she is a member of the Centre for Translation and Interpreting Research, the Applied Linguistics in Language and Education Research Centre, and the Sign Language Linguistics Group. Karen chairs the ASLIA National Interpreter Trainers' Network, and has taught interpreters for over 14 years. She is on the editorial board of the Sign Language Translator and Interpreter journal and the International Journal of Interpreter Education, and she has published work regarding her research interests in interpreter aptitude and performance. Karen recently commenced employment on a part-time basis as a teacher at the Shenton College Deaf Education Centre.

Jeff Brattan-Wilson (UK)

Jeff has been involved in training interpreters for six years. He has worked as an on screen interpreter for ten years for various media companies; such as ITV, BBC, S4C and has translated many documents.

Jeff has been working in the advocacy field for five years and is now managing the advocacy service in Wales and England for the British Deaf Association. At this conference, Jeff feels he will have the unique opportunity to merge his two specialisms for the benefit of the interpreters' personal development.

Richard Brumberg (USA)

Richard Brumberg, B.A., CI/CT, NIC, has been working in the field of interpreting since 1992. For 14 years, Richard specialized in full-time K-12 public schools settings. In New York, Richard worked as a staff interpreter for a Deaf-owned interpreting agency and as an interpreter in the school systems. In North Carolina, he served on the board of Coastal RID as Educational Liaison, working to create ties between educational interpreters in his region. Since his return to Georgia, he has worked in conjunction with the Georgia Department of Education and Department of Labor to help working educational interpreters obtain qualification or certification. In 2009, he was appointed co-chair of the Educational Interpreters Special Interest Group of GaRID, a honor he holds dear to his heart! To date, Richard has presented in Maryland, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, London, Madrid and Sydney. Currently, Richard lives in Atlanta, GA where he works as a full-time freelance
interpreter. As always, he is delighted to be a part of SDP!

Goedele A. M. De Clerck (Belgium)

As a postdoctoral scholar of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Dr. De Clerck is affiliated with the Center for Intercultural Communication and Interaction at Ghent University, Belgium. Her research project focuses on identity dynamics and emancipation processes in Deaf communities in different social, cultural, and political contexts. Last year she started a case study on emancipation processes in the Cameroon Deaf community. She has almost 10 years of experience in anthropological research on empowerment, identity, and agency in Deaf communities. In her research projects she has taken a transnational and comparative perspective, giving particular attention to personal and community development. Dr. De Clerck was a visiting scholar at Gallaudet University, DC, from 2005 until 2007.

In 2009 she received a doctorate in Comparative Science of Culture from Ghent University. For her dissertation she wrote on empowerment, identity, and agency in Flemish and international deaf role models. She was the first Deaf person to defend her dissertation in sign language in Belgium, for which she received the The Hand of Flanders award from The Flemish Deaf Association (Fevlado) in 2010. Dr. De Clerck has published in national and international journals and books on the topics of anthropology, development, and Deaf studies; empowerment, emancipation, and identity dynamics in deaf communities; on deaf education, and on deaf epistemologies.

Anne Darby (UK)

Anne Darby has a wide interest in advocacy, representation and service delivery focusing on equality, empowerment and access. Originating from a family with members progressively deaf from childhood, she works with other deaf people and uses BSL interpreters to gain access to meetings. Some of her work is with students who have English as a second language to assist their production of written work. Her publications include co-editorship of Deaf Identities (2003, Douglas McLean) with George Taylor.

Jules Dickinson (UK)

Jules is a practitioner-researcher, working as a BSL/ English interpreter and undertaking research in workplace settings. Her PhD, 'Interpreting in a Community of Practice: A Sociolinguistic Study of the Signed Language Interpreter's Role in Workplace Discourse', explores the ways in which interpreters affect the dynamics between deaf and hearing employees. Her work focuses on the use of humour, small talk and the collaborative floor in a workplace community of practice. She is keen to see a collaborative approach to interpreting in workplace settings, actively involving and engaging both deaf and hearing employees in the interpreting process.

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, offering services such as BSL/English translation and interpreting, proofreading, editing and copywriting. She has a first degree in Media Production and successfully completed the UCLAN Postgraduate Diploma in British Sign Language/English Interpreting and Translation in 2009, becoming a Member of the Register of Sign Language Interpreters (MRSLI) shortly after.

Steve Emery (UK)

Steve obtained his PhD in 'Citizenship and the Deaf Community' in 2007. He has just completed a follow-up post-doctorate research project on 'Minority Group Rights and Deaf People' with the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Bristol. He is now working as a research associate on the project 'Genetics and Deafhood', led by Dr Paddy Ladd and also funded by Leverhulme. Steve is Deaf since early childhood and has worked across the UK and Ireland since leaving his hometown, Brighton, where he still has strong family roots. Prior to his doctorate he was employed to work in the Deaf community in several roles, including as a counsellor, for which he also holds a full qualification, community development work and advice work.

He received his BA (Hons) in cultural studies from Sheffield Hallam University in 1992. Research project collaborations include a sociological history of BSL, and genetic counselling in the Deaf community. Steve has several publications in journals and book chapters. His forthcoming DVD in BSL of his PhD is due to be published by Ishara Press in winter 2010, and will include an English book version.

Bethel Hutchinson (Australia)

Bethel has worked as a qualified teacher of the deaf for 13 years, after specialising in the education of children with special needs from the time of her first degree. Bethel broadened her experience in Deaf education as a visiting teacher in country Western Australia, as well as in Perth, and has held leadership positions in the visiting teacher service, as well as her current position as the principal of Shenton College Deaf Education Centre. Bethel has previous experience as the coordinator of a high needs unit at a secondary school, in vision impairment services and in training educational assistants working with Deaf and hard of hearing students.

A strong advocate for her profession, Bethel has been a mentor to new visiting teachers, has overseen professional development provided to teachers in a school for the Deaf in the Philippines, and was secretary of the Australian Association of Teachers of the Deaf (WA) for 5 years including during the period of the Australian New Zealand Educators of the Deaf Conference. She is passionate about providing the best access to education for all Deaf and hard of hearing students.

Harlan Lane (USA)

A specialist in the psychology of language with a focal interest in Deaf people, Harlan Lane is the author of numerous articles in professional journals concerning speech, language, and Deaf people. He has written or edited fourteen books, among them, The Wild Boy of Aveyron, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf, and The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community. His most recent book (with U. Hedberg and R. Pillard) is The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry. His honorary awards include the International Social Merit Award of the World Federation of the Deaf; a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (the "genius" award); the Distinguished Service and Literary Achievement Awards of the National Association of the Deaf; and the Order of Academic Palms from the French government.

Robert G. Lee (UK)

Robert G. Lee, MA, CI, CT is an ASL-English Interpreter for over twenty years in a variety of settings, specializing in medical situations and conferences. He is currently senior lecturer in Deaf Studies at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, England and course leader for the postgraduate diploma and MA in BSL/English Interpreting and Translation. He holds an MA in applied linguistics from Boston University and has taught interpreting and linguistics at Northeastern University as well as in seminars in US, Canada, the UK and Europe. Robert has authored or co-authored a number of articles and chapters on both Interpreting and the linguistics of ASL. He is a co-author of the MIT Press book, The Syntax of American Sign Language: Functional Categories and Hierarchical Structure.

Peter Llewellyn-Jones is a founder member of the Register of Interpreters for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He has extensive experience in community, legal, medical, conference, television and theatre interpreting. He co-founded the University of Bristol sign language and interpreting research team and has taught at the Universities of Durham and Wolverhampton. Peter has been a consultant to organizations and universities worldwide and acted as the ‘expert advisor’ on interpreting to European Commission Leonardo/Socrates projects. He is the managing director of Sign Languages International, a training and consultancy company based in England as well being a senior teaching fellow and programme director at the Leeds University (UK) Centre for Translation Studies. In July 2010, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of sign language interpreting, Peter was awarded an Honourary Fellowship from the University of Central Lancashire.

Marcel Leneham (Australia)

Marcel is the president of the Australia Sign Language Interpreters' Association National Executive Committee. Marcel completed the MA programme in Translation and Interpreting at Macquarie University, Sydney, and is currently completing his PhD at the same institution, researching strategies in Auslan/English translation. Marcel is also a casual lecturer at Macquarie University with students studying translation and interpreting in both signed and spoken languages. Marcel also has a BA(Hons) in visual art and a Graduate Diploma of Education, and has previously taught deaf children in primary and secondary schools. He enjoys art, theatre, cooking and travel.

Sam Lutalo-Kiingi (Uganda/UK)

Sam Lutalo-Kiingi is Deaf and was born in Uganda. He is currently undertaking a PhD project on the linguistics of Ugandan Sign Language (USL) at the International Institute for Sign Language and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS) at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), which he is due to complete in September 2011. Sam is also involved in course development and student liaison at iSLanDS. He achieved a first-class BA degree in deaf studies at UCLan in 2008, and received a certificate and diploma in sign language studies from University College Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1998.

He is a sign language lecturer at Kyambogo University in Uganda, and is fluent in seven national sign languages and International Sign. For over 15 years, he has taught several different sign languages in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania and the UK. He started his teaching career by developing a USL teaching programme for trainee interpreters and sign language trainers with the involvement of the Ugandan National Association of the Deaf (UNAD). His most recent work has been on a British Council funded project that aims to establish sign language and deaf studies courses at universities in Ghana and Uganda.

Sam has written in a number of publications related to language and linguistics, including Possessive and Existential Constructions in Sign Languages and The Ugandan Sign Language Dictionary, and Technology and Ethics in Sign Language Research. He is currently on the editorial board of the upcoming book The World's Sign Languages. In 2009, Sam was the keynote speaker at the World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL6) in Cologne, Germany.

Sam is a board member for the Deaf Empowerment Foundation (DEF), based in the Netherlands, and is on the Sign Language Expert Board for the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) in Finland. In addition, he continues to work with other leaders of the Deaf community in Uganda and East Africa. Sam is the first member of this Deaf community to study for a PhD, and the first deaf African to undertake a PhD in linguistics.

Kathryn Mason (UK)

Kathryn works as a researcher at the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) at University College London, and at City University London in the department of Language and Communication Science. She has a Bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Manchester and a Masters in psychological research methods.

After working as a communication support worker for deaf children in a mainstream school, Kathryn joined DCAL and City University London in 2007 to work on a project investigating specific language impairment (SLI) in deaf children acquiring sign language. This is the first major study of language impairment in deaf signing children which aims to better understand and characterise SLI in sign language, in addition to developing specific tests and interventions to use with this group. The research has been presented for discussion with specialist groups in the UK and at international conferences.

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 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.

Gary Morgan (UK)

Gary Morgan is a professor of psychology in the Department of Language and Communication Science at City University London. He started his career with a psychology degree from Manchester and a PhD from Bristol. He worked in Barcelona for 2 years and came back to London to work in linguistics at UCL, before moving to City University in 2001. His specialism is in language and cognitive development, and at the Deafness, Cognition and Language Centre (DCAL) he works in 3 main areas: language development, atypical language development and social-cognitive development.

Jemina Napier (Australia)

Jemina Napier is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she is Head of the Translation & Interpreting programs and Director of the Centre for Translation & Interpreting Research. Jemina has over 20 years experience of signed language interpreting (practising in Auslan, BSL and International Sign) and over 14 years experience as an interpreter educator. She has taught interpreters in the UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Brazil, Kosovo, and Fiji. 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 over 40 books, book chapters and articles discussing aspects of signed language interpreting and interpreting pedagogy.

Andy Owen (UK)

Andy Owen is a full time communication support worker who is a qualified sign language interpreter. He is the chair of the Association of Communication Support Workers (ACSW), serves on the committee of the National Association for Tertiary Education for Deaf People and sits on the Deaf Education Support Forum. Andy has authored two books: a dictionary of religious signs and a manual for the inclusion of Deaf people in protestant churches. He edits the ACSW eNewsletter and writes and campaigns on Deaf issues.

Arun Rao (India)

Arun C. Rao is the director of The Deaf Way Foundation and the president of the Indian Association of Sign Language Interpreters. Deaf Way has been a long term partner of Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in India, having volunteers in the areas of web design, legal casework, organisational development and the latest for developing interpreting in India.

ASLI in India was founded in 2007 to be a campaigning force and to increase the number of known interpreters. It currently provides short interpreter training programs, is a representative of the interpreting profession to the government and seeks to increase knowledge of the interpreting profession in India.

Liz Scully (Canada)

Liz has over two decades of experience as an interpreter and trainer working in the Deaf and Deafblind communities and has interpreted in 24 countries over 5 continents. Liz has worked in a variety of predominantly Deaf situations. In 1996 Liz authored a curriculum for an ASL/English interpreter training program at Cambrian College, Sudbury, in which she taught.

From 2005 - 2007, Liz taught in the interpreter tract of the BSc offered by the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol, England. Currently, Liz has completed the dissertation portion of an MSc in Deaf Studies from that same university. Her research focus explores how to be a good hearing citizen in the Deaf community.

Jennifer Smith (UK)

Jennifer worked as a Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) volunteer at the Deaf Way Foundation in India from November 2009 to November 2010. She worked closely with both organisations to develop the Indian Association of Sign Language Interpreters and in creating an interpreting training program for people fluent in Indian Sign Language such as bilinguals.