Speakers

Irmina Danilowska is a sworn translator of French, the owner of Timeliness Service, the president of the Lublin Society for Translators (LST). She has been working as a translator for over 20 years mainly driven by her passion for the French language, willingness to self-improve and the desire to interact with interesting people and to see the world. She gained her experience through work in managerial positions in large companies and chambers of commerce, as well as during trainings and courses organized by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Poland, Paris-Sorbonne University and the University of Lyon. She is a graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw in the field of teaching and translation where she studied French. She also completed postgraduate studies at UMCS – “Law for sworn and specialist translators”. For 12 years, she has been running her own translating business. In her daily practice she cooperates with law firms, banks, insurance and construction companies as well as specialized translation agencies.

Merit-Ene Ilja is a Translation Director in the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission. She oversees the operations of the Spanish, Irish, Croatian, Hungarian, Latvian, Dutch and Slovenian language departments. She is also in charge of the CAT environment and language technology applications in the DGT’s translation ecosystem.

A linguist by qualifications with an academic background, she worked as a lecturer at the University of Tartu from 1984 to 1995. She has extensive experience in translation management going back to 1995 when she worked for the Estonian Translation Centre. She managed the Centre to successfully deliver the translation of the acquis communautaire in the run up to Estonia’s accession to the EU.

She started her career in the EU institutions in 2004 when Estonia joined the EU. From 2004 to 2008, she managed the Estonian and Hungarian translation units in the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU. She has been working for European Commission since 2008 and fulfilled a range of management functions such as managing the Estonian, Romanian and Slovenian Language Departments and heading the unit responsible for professional and organisational development issues in DGT. In 2013 she became Director in the team of four Translation Directors in DGT.

Dr hab. Artur D. Kubacki, has been Head of the Department of German Linguistics at the Institute of Neophilology at the Pedagogical University of Krakow since 2014, and an active sworn translator of German since 1998. He received his post-doctoral degree in humanities in 2013 on the basis of his habilitation thesis Certified Translation. Status, training, workshop and responsibility of a sworn translator (Wolters Kluwer 2012). Prof. Kubacki is the author or co-author and the editor or co-editor of 22 books in the field of translation studies and glottodidactics, as well as the author or co-author of more than 130 articles, reviews and translations in the field of specialised translation and its didactics, with a special focus on the translation of legal and economic terminology. He has been a member of the Professional Responsibility Commission of Sworn Translators since 2005 and a consultant since 2007 and then, since 2013, a member of the State Examination Commission for the examination of sworn translators at the Ministry of Justice. In addition, he is an expert in the field of linguistic jurisprudence at the Regional Court of Krakow. For his active work for the community of sworn translators, he was awarded the Laurel of the Translator 2020 by the Polish Society of Sworn and Specialised Translators TEPIS in Warsaw due to his knowledge, many years of experience and outstanding professional achievements.

Dr Annette Schiller is Vice President of the International Federation of Translators (FIT) and is a member of the newly formed FIT Standing Committee on Crisis Settings. She is a former Chairperson of FIT Europe, the Regional Centre Europe of FIT, and former Chairperson of the Irish Translators’ and Interpreters’ Association (ITIA). Annette is an independent translator, specialising in academic and legal translation. She has a PhD in Translation Studies and a degree in Legal Studies and is an ITIA Certified Legal Translator. She has taught on postgraduate and undergraduate translation programmes at Dublin City University for over 20 years. She is a member of the ITIA and of the German Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (BDÜ)/Landesverband Bayern.

Dr Silvia Gatscher worked as a pediatric neurosurgeon in the UK, Germany, and the US. After receiving her MBA from Hult International Business School in 2016, she became a consultant for the WHO Emergency Response Office (WHO EMRO). In this role, she supported relief projects in Northern Syria and later in Somalia. She then worked for the UNICEF Somalia and East Africa office as a health manager, supporting the capacity building of Somali government officials and helping to improve the resilience of East African health systems, so that these services can better withstand and cope with future stresses. Her current role as health program manager for the WHO country office includes the coordination of national and international health partners as well as the implementation of the refugee response plan and health operations in support of the Ministry of Health.

Agnieszka Walter-Drop is the Director-General for Logistics and Interpretation for Conferences in the European Parliament. Prior to this, she was the Director for Committees / External Policies in the EP. Before devoting her career to the European Institutions, she worked in the Polish Foreign Affairs service, amongst others as Deputy Chief of the Polish Mission in Berlin. Besides her institutional and governmental functions, she has been actively involved in political transformation processes in post-communist countries. One of her most important professional assignments was serving as chief of staff for Mr. Jan Kułakowski, Chief Negotiator of the Polish accession to the EU. Agnieszka Walter-Drop holds a degree in theatre science. She advocates participatory and gender-neutral management and promotes an inclusive work environment.

Christopher Wegener has been a humanitarian worker with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) since 2019. He gained his experience during numerous missions in the field as a human resources and finance manager, primarily in Yemen, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ukraine. Born and raised in Switzerland, Christoper previously worked in the finance sector for ten years, starting in a consulting firm and then joining a venture capital fund focusing on the European mid-cap market. Driven by a desire to be needed and to use his skills and knowledge to help others, he joined the humanitarian aid community three years ago and has since taken part in both regular aid missions and emergency missions such as the one in Ukraine. Passionate and motivated, and open to other people, Christopher tries to learn as much as possible from each mission on the ground.

Aga Macura has experience working in multilingual environments in humanitarian response, studying how language impacts communication and effectiveness of aid. She’s raising awareness about the need for systematic language data collection, use of appropriate terminology in organisations’ communication materials, and about the need to include language services in aid project planning. Since March 2022 she is leading CLEAR Global’s response in Poland to help local organisations and the affected people break communication barriers. She’s also interested in how the language we use in our everyday life impacts the way we perceive and build the world around us.

She’s fluent in English, Polish and French.

Public Services National Anchor Point in the European Language Resource Coordination (ELRC) Programme, appointed by the Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) of the European Commission and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). She holds a degree in English philology, a postgraduate degree in translation studies (IPSKT) from the University of Warsaw and completed an eMBA course in health care. She studied postgraduate courses in business finance and logistics. Member of the Polish Society of Sworn and Specialized Translators TEPIS. A specialist translator of English, working mainly with academic staff and coordinating translation projects for the Gdańsk University of Technology and the NFZ Head Office. Under the ELRC programme, she popularizes the need for open language resources among public administrations for the development of EU language tools, e.g. eTranslation, and knowledge of translation services, language tools and technologies, EU projects in this field, as well as good industry practice in public procurement.

Dr Mirosława Kawecka – Ukrainian and Russian philologist by profession. University teacher, Head of the Department of Slavonic Studies at the State School of Higher Education in Chełm. Experienced sworn translator of Ukrainian, second vice-president of the Lublin Association of Translators.

A Belgian living and working in Poland (Zamosc) since 2001. She holds a Master’s degree in Eastern European Languages and Cultures and postgraduate studies in public relations, business communication and management. She has been working as a translator since 2004 and was certified as a sworn translator of Dutch in Poland in 2014. She is co-founder of the FreeLING Foundation, where she is responsible for managing and organising training courses. She has been running workshops for Dutch translators for several years. She is an active member of the Lublin Association of Translators and one of the originators of the Professional Translator – Conscious Client Programme. She participates in the deliberations and consultations of the GDPR team, which was established as part of this Programme. On behalf of the LST, she also participates in the deliberations of the team for the amendment of the law on the profession of sworn translators. At the 2017 Translators’ Conference, she received an award for her contribution to the development of the Polish translation industry.