Speakers conf 2018

Conference 2018 speakers

Stephen Johnston

Stephen JohnstonStephen Johnston is a professional trainer, copywriter and journalist who works with multi-national companies on projects such as websites, internal and external communication, white papers, marketing material, brochures, corporate journalism, and speechwriting ... and blogs!

Much of this work involves specifically targeting different readership groups. Stephen also upgrades previously written texts and/or provides one tone-of-voice for texts with multiple authors to increase their impact and professionalism. He also conducts workshops and training sessions to improve the quality of business writing and presenting.

Stephen is giving a pre-conference workshop entitled The impossible blog: How to write a readable blog from unreadable material.

Tony Parr

Tony ParrTony Parr (pictured) and Marcel Lemmens are professional business translators and translator trainers. Both have extensive experience as translators (both freelance and in-house) and as teachers of translation, principally at the National College of Translation in Maastricht. They are the authors of Handboek voor de Vertaler Nederlands–Engels. Operating under the name of Teamwork, they have been organising courses, workshops and conferences for language professionals in the Netherlands since 1993.

Tony and Marcel’s workshop-style conference presentation is entitled Identifying and rectifying translatorese.

Susannah Goss

Susannah GossSusannah Goss is a Scientific Editor at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. She has the Chartered Institute of Linguists’ Diploma in Translation and a European Master’s Degree in Linguistics. Having been thrown into the LaTeX deep end a few years ago (and almost sinking), she is motivated to offer other language professionals a gentler introduction to LaTeX.

 

Susannah will be co-presenting a double conference session with Ailish Maher entitled Editing documents produced in LaTeX, for which laptops are recommended.

 

Margreet de Roo

Margreet de Roo photoIn what feels like a previous life Margreet used to be a German teacher until she moved to Nairobi, Kenya, with her husband in 2003. They returned to the Netherlands in 2012, where Margreet set up her editing business, Maneno tekstredactie. She mostly works as a copy-editor and proofreader and is learning how to do developmental editing. Every now and then she translates a book from English or German into Dutch.

In the Facebook groups for editors that she joined, she quickly discovered that there are many tools that can make an editor’s life easier, and she enjoys using them. In 2016 she started sharing her knowledge with fellow editors and translators through her workshop Handigheidjes Word and that reminded her of why she likes teaching so much: seeing the smiles when students realize that they have just learned something incredibly useful.

Margreet lives in Zwolle with her husband, two daughters and two cats.

Margreet is giving a pre-conference workshop entitled Making the best, most optimal use of MS Word (including macros and PerfectIt).

Martine Croll

Martine CrollMartine is a freelance copywriter, storyteller and communications consultant. Born in the Netherlands, but travelled the world living in Jamaica, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and the UK. Because she is a native speaker of both English and Dutch, she writes in both languages. She studied English Language and Literature at Leiden University here in the Netherlands.

Since setting up her business she’s been lucky enough to work for a vast array of people and companies. She’s written articles for magazines, blog posts, annual and strategic reports, corporate books and many, many websites.

She enjoys writing. Why? ‘Because every piece of writing challenges me to tell a new story. Writing and storytelling are crafts that can be acquired. But, perhaps more importantly, I’ve found that they are crafts that can make things happen in the real world,’ according to Martine.

Martine's main conference presentation is entitled Scribe or shrink? Improving client relationships and winning more clients the easy way - by getting into their heads! She is also presenting a TED-style conference talk entitled Making ideas happen! Using the power within to tackle the things that are scary and just ‘do it’.

Jeremy Gardner

Jeremy GardnerAfter receiving his first degree (modern languages), Jeremy Gardner taught English for 15 years at the universities of Perugia, Cagliari, Cosenza and Ancona. He then moved to Luxembourg, to work as a translator at the European Union. His tasks there include editing original English texts and working as an interpreter/auditor during official visits to the Member States, Italy, in particular. He is also a member of the EU’s inter-institutional style guide committee and played a significant role in drafting the current version.

In 2012, Jeremy published a tongue-in-cheek guide to misused words in EU publications, which attracted considerable attention in the media, both in Europe and beyond and has since written articles on other aspects of the English used at the EU institutions.

He is also involved in training activities aimed at improving the level of drafting within the EU, delivering presentations and workshops both in the EU institutions and beyond.

Jeremy is opening the conference with a plenary talk entitled EU English: Past, present and conditional.

Iris Schrijver

Iris Schrijver photoDr Iris Schrijver is a tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Translators and Interpreters at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Antwerp, where she teaches an introductory course in Translation Studies as well as several courses on translation from Spanish into Dutch. She holds an MA in Translation and a PhD in Translation Studies. In 2016 she was awarded the Young Scholar Prize 2016 from the European Society for Translation Studies for her doctoral dissertation entitled ‘The translator as a text producer: The effects of writing training on transediting and translation performance.’ Her main research interests are the acquisition of translation competence, cognitive translation processes and translation quality assessment.

Iris’s conference presentation is entitled Translation quality (assessment): Insights from Translation Studies in the quest for the holy grail?

Ellen Singer

Ellen SingerEllen Singer is a freelance translator with more than twenty years of experience as a full-time translator and project manager. She owns a small technical translation agency with her husband that focuses on quality. Ellen has been working with CAT tools since the 1990s. She loves challenges and knowledge and enjoys cooperating with others. A speaker of English, Spanish and Dutch, Ellen has been presenting at conferences since 2013. She has covered a wide range of topics, from technical translation to Donald Duck, from file conversion to QA, and even Why translate? She enjoys conferences and meeting other translators.

Ellen's conference presentation is entitled Linguist and laymen (Or: Fit for purpose).

Charles Frink

Charles FrinkCharles Frink is the owner of Frink Communications and has worked as an editor and translator for more than 30 years. He has been associated in this capacity with Wageningen UR (and its precursors) since 1992. He currently focuses on editing and teaching scientific writing in the life sciences.

Charles’s conference presentation is entitled Disrupting the inheritance of poor writing habits: An alternative approach to editing and teaching writing (in the health-related sciences).

Maria Sherwood-Smith

Maria SherwoodMaria Sherwood-Smith is a lecturer in Academic English in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences in Leiden. She holds a BA in French and German from Trinity College Dublin, and a DPhil. in Medieval Languages from the University of Oxford. Her research focused on vernacular authors’ use of a Latin source text. After temporary lectureships at the universities of Manchester and Oxford, she moved to the Netherlands in 1999. Since 2003, Maria has been employed as a translator for the Dutch police. She also works as a freelance translator and language editor, mainly for academic publications.

Maria's conference presentation is entitled Outreach and research communication in English: Opportunities for language professionals.

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