This post is also available in: Spanish
[Latest update: February 12, 2026]
Conference speakers and participants in roundtables (in alphabetical order):
José Alberto Azeredo Lopes holds a doctorate in Law and is professor of International Law at the Portuguese Catholic University. He has served as academic director and coordinator of master’s programmes in European and International Law. He chaired Portugal’s Regulatory Authority for the Media between 2006 and 2011. He was minister of National Defence from 2015 to 2018, leading strategic reforms in the fields of security and defence. He took part as an international observer in Timor-Leste’s constitutional consultation. He has undertaken further training at the Hague Academy of International Law and at specialised European centres. His career combines academic, regulatory and governmental experience. He contributes to public debates on defence, international legality and European construction, providing legal expertise, an international outlook and institutional experience.
Lorena Baudo specializes in Translation, Terminology, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies. She is the Head of the Chairs of Terminology, Technical, and Scientific Translation at the National University of Córdoba (UNC), Argentina. She has been the local coordinator for the UNC-World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, Switzerland) terminology collaboration since 2018 and has delivered workshops and talks at the UN headquarters in New York and Geneva. She currently leads a team of researchers working on the field of translation and intercultural tensions. Her most recent publication is entitled Accessibility, Exclusion, and Language Professions: Translation and Interpreting from the Perspective of Disability (2025), which is available in Nueva ReCIT, the open-access translation journal of the School of Languages, UNC. She has also been a visiting trainer to the Universitat de Lleida, Spain, where she is the co-editor of the Translation Process Series published by UdL. Lorena has worked as a freelance English < > Spanish translator and reviewer since 2002.
Łucja Biel is a Professor of Linguistics and Translation Studies and Head of EUMultiLingua research group in the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Poland. She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Specialised Translation. She has published extensively on EU/legal translation and terminology and co-edited a number of volumes: Handbook of Terminology. Vol. 3. Legal Terminology (with H. Kockaert, 2023), Institutional Translator Training (with T. Svoboda, V. Sosoni; Routledge, 2022); Research Methods in Legal Translation and Interpreting. Crossing Methodological Boundaries (with J. Engberg, M. R. Martin Ruano, V. Sosoni, Routledge, 2019). She has participated in a number of research projects, including The Polish Eurolekt and MHEALTH4ALL: Development and implementation of a digital platform for the promotion of access to mental healthcare for low language proficient third-country nationals in Europe. She is also a sworn translator with over 25 years of professional experience.
Zhengren Li is the former Chief of the Interpretation Service at the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG), the first Chinese national to hold that position. He joined the UN in 1984 and went on become Chief of the Central Planning and Coordination Service (UNOG). He has sat on the examination boards of interpreting recruitment exams at the United Nations, becoming vice chair of the UN interpreter exam board. For ten years, he chaired the UN-AIIC reclassification panel for freelance interpreters. Professor Li has continued to contribute to Chinese conference interpreter training by serving as the Executive Dean of the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation at Shanghai International Studies University (GIIT/SISU).In this educational capacity, he continues to promote the cooperation between the UN and its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) universities and also between IAMLADP and universities through the Universities Contact Group (UCG). In 2019, he co-hosted a Special Meeting of the UCG on the campus of SISU.
Daniel Linder is an Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca (Spain), where he teaches on the B.A. In Translation and Interpreting and the M.A. in Translation and Intercultural Mediation, a program he coordinated from 2017 to 2021. Since 2015, he has acted as the Focal Point for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United Nations and the University of Salamanca and as the main representative of the University of Salamanca in the Universities Contact Group (UCG), within the IAMLADP’s Working Group on Training. He is a Certified Translator (Spanish>English) of the American Translators Association and a holder of the Diploma in Translation (DipTrans MCIL) granted by the Chartered Institute of Linguists (London). His core research interests center on the use, translation and revision of specialized language in scientific and technical texts. He belongs to the E-Lectra research group (http://diarium.usal.es/electra), which focuses on digital and electronic reading, editing, publishing and evaluation of scientific information.
Esther Llorente Isidro currently works as a Senior Spanish Translator for the World Trade Organization (WTO), where she has played a key role in developing and implementing an institutional quality assurance policy framework for complex dispute settlement, economic, and technical texts. Her efforts foster innovation in linguistic services through the use of advanced technologies. With over 25 years of experience in institutional translation and linguistic services, she holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations and Private and Public International Law (UCM). She further developed her legal and economic expertise through rigorous training at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, University of Geneva, and The Hague Academy of International Law. Prior to joining the WTO, she worked for several specialized agencies of the United Nations, including FAO, UNEP, UNESCO, and WFP, as well as the European Commission. Fluent in Chinese, English, French, and Italian, she combines linguistic mastery with legal and economic insight. Accredited by ASTTI and AITC, she upholds the highest standards of quality and cultural adaptability.
María Ángeles Orts Llopis is a professor of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Murcia, where she currently carries out her teaching and research work in the field of legal and economic translation, and applied linguistics. Her work focuses on the analysis of professional discourse, with particular attention to the relationships between language, law and power in institutional and multilingual contexts. She currently actively participates in projects and research groups focused on applied linguistics, legal and police translation, and forensic linguistics. Her recent research addresses certain subjects such as persuasion in economic discourse, the role of emotion in professional genres and discursive representation of the climacteric in the judicial sphere. She has four recognized sexennial periods of research and a consolidated scientific output in specialist journals and volumes. She combines research with teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as supervising doctoral theses and coordinating specialized academic modules. She maintains a regular participation as a guest speaker in international conferences, and she cooperates with universities as well as European and North American research centers, which reinforces her current work in the study of the legal and economic discourse from an interdisciplinary approach.
Franz Pöchhacker is Professor of Interpreting Studies in the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna. With degrees in conference interpreting from the University of Vienna and the Monterey Institute of International Studies and 30 years of experience in conference and media interpreting, his academic interests have expanded over the years to include issues of interpreting studies as a discipline, community interpreting in healthcare, social service and asylum settings and, more recently, technology-enabled forms of interpreting such as video remote interpreting and automated speech translation. He has lectured and published widely and is the author of several books, including the textbook Introducing Interpreting Studies (2004/32022), which has been translated into several languages. His edited volumes include The Interpreting Studies Reader (2002) and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies (2015), and he is co-editor, with Minhua Liu, of Interpreting: International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting.
Fernando Prieto Ramos is Full Professor and Director of the Centre for Legal and Institutional Translation Studies (Transius) at the University of Geneva’s Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, where he held the deanship from 2014 to 2018 and is currently Vice-Dean. His work focuses on interdisciplinary approaches, translator competence, terminology management and quality assurance in legal and institutional translation in particular. He has published widely, and has received several academic awards, including a European Label Award for Innovative Methods in Language Teaching from the European Commission, an International Geneva Award from the Swiss Network for International Studies, and a Consolidator Grant for his project on “Legal Translation in International Institutional Settings” (LETRINT). He is a former member of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, and has translated for various national and international institutions, including five years of in-house service at the World Trade Organization (dispute settlement team).
Diana Soliverdi Garrigós has been a conference interpreter since 1992. A Spanish national, her working languages are Italian, French, English and Spanish. She works regularly in remote interpreting. Since 2010, she has been a lecturer on the Translation and Interpreting Degree at the Autonomous University of Madrid, and since 2026 she also teaches interpreting at the Complutense University. Since 2008, she has been organising and running conference interpreting courses at different times of the year. In terms of her education, she holds a degree in Hispanic Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid and has trained in simultaneous and consecutive interpreting in courses taught by professional interpreters. She is also a sworn interpreter of Italian and French for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
THE IDEAS LAB
The IdeasLab is a collaborative space open to PhD students within our Social Sciences Doctoral Program—a program featuring diverse research tracks, including translation and intercultural mediation, anthropology, and sociology. In keeping with the spirit of “intellectual alchemy” that marked our Seminar’s origins, the IdeasLab is a unique forum where ideas can circulate, be challenged, and encounter a fertile culture culture medium for enrichment. This exchange hub fosters reflection and dialogue, bridging the gap between emerging research, professional practice, and the expertise of established scholars.
Giulia Barão holds a degree in International Relations from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, 2013). She possesses master’s degrees in Peace and Culture (University of Cádiz, 2019), Latin American Studies (University of Salamanca, 2018), Humanities (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, 2016) and International Cultural Relations (CAEU/OEI, 2015). Since 2021, she has been a PhD candidate in Social Sciences within the Comparative Studies of the Americas program at the University of Brasília, with joint supervision by the University of Salamanca. Her research centers on international cooperation and the comparative analysis of cultural actions by regional organizations. She analyzes the cultural programs within the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which is the subject of her doctoral thesis. Her work engages with studies on regionalism, cultural governance, and the transnational circulation of ideas, highlighting the role of culture and language as drivers of cooperation and regional projects.
Sara García Fernández holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Salamanca, where she also completed a Master’s degree in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Salamanca, holding a University Teaching Training contract (in Spanish, FPU) financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. She is part of the recognised research group (GIR) TRADIC, coordinated by África Vidal Claramonte. Her PhD thesis, supervised by Rosario Martín Ruano and recently defended, is titled “Institutional Translation and Disability: Evolution and Challenges in Disseminating Inclusive Values Through Language in International Organizations”. Her investigation explores the possibilities, implications and challenges at the intersection of institutional translation and emerging social dialogues and advancements regarding diversity and disability inclusion.
Mar Melgar Quesada holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2014) and completed the Euro-Latin American Master’s Degree in Intercultural Education at UNED (2019). She is currently in her second year of the PhD programme in Social Sciences at the University of Salamanca, within the research line “Translation and Intercultural Mediation” at the Faculty of Translation and Documentation. Her research focuses on communicative and linguistic barriers in intervention contexts involving women victims of prostitution and human trafficking, as well as on the tools and strategies used to overcome such barriers. She has one year of professional experience as a legal interpreter in TISP and three years of experience as a medical and healthcare translator and interpreter in the private sector. She also has one semester of teaching experience, having taught English and French at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. She currently works as a freelance Spanish language teacher.
Lucie Lhaurado holds a degree in Psychology from the Université Lyon II, a Master’s degree in Translation and Intercultural Mediation from the University of Salamanca, and a Master’s degree in Institutional Translation from the University of Alicante. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Salamanca, within the research line “Translation and Intercultural Mediation”. Her PhD thesis focuses on the implementation of plain language in judicial rulings in Francophone and Spanish-speaking contexts. At a professional level, she works as a freelance translator and language instructor.
To see the biographical profiles of the participants from the IX Seminar 2023, click here.
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