KEYNOTE SPEAKER:  Dottie Li is a successful coach, keynote speaker, and communication strategist who designs and provides media training and cross-cultural communication training. She has conducted numerous workshops, presentations, and seminars on the techniques and benefits of effective communication. Her work has been featured on NPR, in China Daily, and in other media. Dottie is a certified coach on accent modification and reduction. Millions hear her voice as the Voice and Voice Coach of Rosetta Stone’s Mandarin products.

An essential part of her mission at TransPacific Communications (TPC) is to help break down cultural and communication barriers in the workplace, ensuring that talented English-speaking foreign speakers fulfill their promise. She has coached countless non-native English professionals to transform their careers through accent reduction and modification. | Conference sessions: 

• Keynote Presentation

• Transforming Lives and Careers: Mastering Communication & Networking Skills for Career Success

SKILLS TRAINER:  Yuliya Speroff is a Russian–English CoreCHI-P™ and Washington DSHS-certified interpreter and Medical Interpreter Supervisor at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. Yuliya has extensive experience as a trainer, teaching both continuing education courses and introductory medical interpreter training programs for major professional organizations across the United States. Yuliya’s passion for advancing the medical interpreting profession is reflected in multiple roles: she is the author of medicalinterpreterblog.com and serves as vice president of the National Council on Interpreting in Healthcare (NCIHC). Her contributions have been recognized nationally—she was named Interpreter of the Year by the California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA) in 2021 and Trainer of the Year by Americans Against Language Barriers (AALB) in 2024. | Conference session: 

• Sight Translation Skills Training (2h)

FEATURED PRESENTER:  Abi Ocampo Zapién was born and raised in Colorado and is a first-generation Mexican-American. Abi joined the Community Language Cooperative in February 2025 and has helped bridge the gap through interpretation for participants who are interested in participating in their communities, building relationships, and getting informed while listening and speaking in their heart language. Abi also works in community services, helping families of all different backgrounds create stability for themselves so they might thrive. She believes all families have the right to fair housing, access to clean water and food, interpretation and translation services in their native language, and that no family should live in fear based on their documentation status or background. She holds a degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. In her free time, you can find Abi curled up with a book and her cats by her side or visiting her local library with her partner.  |  Conference sessions: 

• Centering Language Justice in Community and Social Change Work
• Promising Practices for Working with Interpreters
  

Yasemin Alptekin is a WA State Registered Court Interpreter (since 2019) with over 30 years of experience in Turkish<>English teaching, interpreting, and translation. She holds a BA in Western Languages and Literature from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy in Global Education from Ohio State University. Moreover, she is certified as Superior in Oral Proficiency by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. She is a member of both the ATA and NOTIS, where she served as a board member from 2021 to 2023.

Yasemin translated African Stories by Doris Lessing and Boom by Mark Haddon into Turkish. She has also translated nine children’s books from Turkish to English as an intermediary (or “pivot”) language; they were later translated into twenty different languages. Among her recent translations is a book on Palmyra, the ancient Syrian region that ISIS destroyed in 2015: Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions. The Turkish translation was published in 2019.

Yasemin is also a published author. Her first book, Gitmek mi Zor Kalmak mi? (What is Harder: To Leave or to Stay?), tells her story of coming to the USA. Her second book, Dehliz, is about a twelve-year-old boy with functional autism. She translated Dehliz into English as The Passage; it was published in the USA in 2024. | Conference session: 

• The Four S.I.N.S. of Literary Translation
  

Andrew Belisle is a Federally Certified Court Interpreter and trained conference interpreter with a decade of experience across legal, medical, and governmental settings. Born in Japan and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Andrew spent his late teens and twenties in Europe and the Middle East. His degrees include an MA in Conference Interpretation—English, Spanish, German—from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, and a BA Hons in German, French, and Spanish from Bangor University in the United Kingdom. He regularly speaks on skill development, interpreting as a profession, business practices, and language learning, and has trained interpreters in the U.S. and Latin America. When not on the job, Andrew can be found studying an obscure language, cooking a beef bourguignon for loved ones, or sweating it out at CrossFit. | Conference session (with co-presenters Gabriela Muñoz Ravello & Wendy Maestracci — bios below): 

• Back to Basics: Professional Habits That Help Interpreters Stand Out (2h)

CO-PRESENTER:  Gabriela Muñoz Ravello is a Federally Certified Court Interpreter, conference interpreter, and ATA-certified translator based in Washington DC. She holds a Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School and is licensed to practice in New York. A disillusioned attorney looking for a career change, Gabriela started her interpretation & translation journey as a court interpreter in Alabama, where she grew up. After a few years of working in the courts, she decided to pursue an MA in Conference Interpretation—English, Spanish, French—, which she obtained from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies before moving back to the nation’s capital. When she isn’t interpreting, you can find her working on her baking skills or traveling to Peru to spend time with her family and eat the best cuisine in the world. (Gabriela is presenting alongside Andrew Belisle & Wendy Maestracci.)

CO-PRESENTER:  Wendy Maestracci is a Federally Certified Court Interpreter with over ten years of experience working in both California State and U.S. District Courts. In 2023, she completed a Master’s degree in Conference Interpretation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and has since been working in both the conference and court interpreting fields. In a previous life, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Media Arts and Animation and spent several years in the visual effects industry, where her fondest memory was helping bring a very naughty teddy bear to life. In her free time, she enjoys knitting, sewing, and painting, though her favorite pastime is spending time on the couch with her dog, Jammies. (Wendy is presenting alongside Andrew Belisle & Gabriela Muñoz Ravello.)

Zakiya Hanafi is an Affiliate Assistant Professor of French and Italian at the University of Washington and an award‑winning translator of scholarly works in the humanities. She holds a PhD in Italian Studies and Comparative Literature (French) from Stanford University and has extensive experience translating major works of philosophy and literary criticism from Italian and French into English.

Her translations, published by leading academic presses such as Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Polity, include works by Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and Judith Butler. She is the recipient of a 2026 Albertine Translation Fund award and the 2023 MLA Scaglione Prize for the translation of a scholarly study of literature.

Active in both academia and the professional translation community as a certified medical and immigration court interpreter, she brings a practitioner’s perspective to the scholarly translation market, with particular expertise in guiding projects from initial offer through publication. | Conference session: 

• The Best of Both Worlds: Breaking into Scholarly Translation

Eunyoung Kim is a Court Program Analyst overseeing the WA AOC Interpreter Program. She manages the testing, training, and recruitment of credentialed court interpreters, monitors their compliance, and works with the Interpreter and Language Access Commission (ILAC) on issues related to court interpreter policy, collaborating with partners in the language access field to improve language access in the courts. Eunyoung holds an MBA from the University of Washington and a BA in English Literature and Language from Sung Shin Women's University in South Korea. She has been a WA AOC-certified court interpreter since 2011. | Conference session:  

• Pathway to Court Interpreting: A Roadmap to Court Interpreter Credentialing (for medical interpreters)

Manuela Noske is an accomplished linguist, educator, and cross‑cultural communication expert whose career spans academia, global technology, and nonprofit leadership. She holds a PhD in linguistics, has carried out fieldwork in East Africa and spent more than 17 years at Microsoft advancing internationalization and globalization for worldwide products. Her work has since expanded into leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, where she champions women’s leadership, democratic engagement, and community‑centered design. She is currently an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Human Centered Design & Engineering Department at the University of Washington, where she teaches engineering students how to integrate cultural context into design, drawing on her deep experience in language, global communication, and UI design. | Conference session:  

• Translation in the Humanitarian Sector

Nityia Przewlocki serves as the Web Information Specialist for EthnoMed.org, a key resource hub for the Interpreter Services Department at Harborview Medical Center. In this role, she oversees content strategy, branding, and social media management, ensuring that vital health information reaches diverse communities effectively.

Nityia leverages her background as a professional portrait and event photographer to enhance EthnoMed’s digital presence. She is currently developing a custom library of visual content, including educational and marketing videos designed to improve patient outreach. A highlight of her recent work was a collaboration with Harborview’s Burn Clinic and the Interpreter Services team, during which she produced a series of instructional burn wound care videos — now available in eight different languages.

With over a decade of experience in branding and communications for small businesses and entrepreneurs, Nityia brings a sophisticated lens to healthcare messaging. She is deeply committed to health equity and inclusivity, focusing on the power of culturally tailored communication to foster equitable care. Her dedication to the community was recently recognized with the University of Washington Spring 2026 Cares Award. Nityia continues to champion projects that humanize healthcare through thoughtful, visual storytelling and multilingual outreach. | Conference session:

• Multilingual by Design: Producing Accessible Health Education Videos for LEP Patients — Process, Tools, and Lessons Learned

James Sherrell leads cross-cultural medicine education initiatives at EthnoMed, where he trains healthcare professionals across UW Medicine to better care for diverse patient populations. His work includes overseeing community engagement, quality improvement projects, supervising medical residents and graduate students, developing patient and provider resources, building community and institutional partnerships, and shaping EthnoMed’s strategic direction and project development.

Gauri Shringarpure is a linguist with expertise in Indic languages who speaks Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, German, and Konkani (in addition to English). She holds a Masters in German Literature from the University of Pune, India, and another in Intercultural Communication from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. While she has worn several hats as a translator, interpreter, subtitler, editor, and content creator, a significant part of her professional work has been in the Linguistic Validation space in regulated industries. Currently, she works as an AI linguist on Meta's Multilingual Linguistic Engineering team.

Gauri has been active as a writer and promoter of culture in several South Asian nonprofits in the Seattle area and plays the keyboard in local South Asian bands. She is passionate about bringing meaningful art to the community, including workshops that bring real life stories of South Asian women to stage, and advocating for mental health and social awareness through the performing arts. As an improviser, Gauri has performed at Eastside Improv in Redmond and with both Pratidhwani and Unexpected Productions in Seattle. | Conference session:  

• UNSCRIPTED! An Improvisation Workshop on Language Beyond Words

Emily Sielen has a Master’s in Interpreting Studies from Western Oregon University and is a nationally certified healthcare and educational interpreter with more than a decade of experience. Additionally, Emily has worked as an instructor in the Spanish Medical Interpreting Program at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington, since 2023. She loves complex assignments that put her skills to the test. | Conference session (with co-presenter Sharon Yedidia — bio below):  

• Pathways to Credentialing: An Academic Approach to Medical Interpreter Training (2h)

CO-PRESENTER:  Sharon Yedidia has a Master’s in Interpreting and Translating from the University of Bath, England, and is a Washington State-certified court interpreter. Sharon is the director of the Spanish Medical Interpreting Program at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington, which she launched in 2015. She has been a freelance interpreter since 2005 and is passionate about interpreter education. (Sharon is presenting alongside Emily Sielen.)

Amanda Wheeler-Kay (she/her), Certified Healthcare Interpreter, teacher, lifelong learner. Amanda is a white woman from Oregon whose second language is Spanish. A former social worker, she has worked as a community/healthcare interpreter and interpreter educator in Portland since 2007. She is a founding member of Oregon Interpreters in Action, the first union for healthcare interpreters. She previously served as a volunteer interpreter and board member of the Clackamas Volunteers in Medicine Clinic. In June 2025, Amanda received a Master’s Degree from Western Oregon University in Interpreting Studies, with a focus on teaching and educational interpreting. She currently serves on the board of Nuevas Sonrisas, a local nonprofit organization supporting health hygiene and dental education for school children in Guatemala; 2026 was her third year as the trip lead. Amanda loves to travel with friends/family and play noncompetitive soccer. Her heart lives in two other communities that were once home: Washington DC and Buena Vista, Cuscatlán, El Salvador. Amanda does her best to “make good trouble, necessary trouble” following the call to action of the late Civil Rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis. | Conference session (with co-presenter Rodrigo Gaspar-Barajas — bio below):  

• Do the Right Thing! Ethical Decision-Making in Healthcare Interpreting (2h)