Elizabeth A. Nguyen
President
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Manager/ Language and Cultural Services Senior Diversity Specialist
Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

 

Elizabeth currently represents CHIA as a member organization of the National Coalition on Certification of Healthcare Interpreters (NCC), participating in five of its six committees. She has served on the Board of CHIA in various capacities since 1999. As the former co-chair of Standards & Certification Committee, she led in the creation of the CHIA “California Standards for Healthcare Interpreters” (2002). She has contributed to the development of various interpreter training programs including the “Connecting Worlds”.

Elizabeth speaks French and Vietnamese, has a degree in French Literature and a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics. She has served the community as medical interpreter since the early nineties, and is involved in multiple arenas of activities including national speaking engagements, interpreter and provider training, diversity and cultural competency training, consumer education and language access advocacy.

She works at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where she is entrusted with cultural and linguistic affairs as the Senior Diversity Specialist. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

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Rosario Nevado
Vice President
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Spanish Interpreter
Stanford Hospital and Clinics
Belmont, CA

 

Rosario Nevado has been a Medical Interpreter at Stanford Hospital and Clinics for the past 18 years responsible for the statistics of the Office of Interpreters Services. She is a certified trainer for the 60-hr Connecting Worlds Health Care Interpreter Training course and teaches it at Asian Health Services in Oakland and Merrit College. In addition to her Vice-Presidential duties, Rosario has served on many CHIA committees and is a former Bay Area Chapter Chair.
 
Before joining Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Rosario pursued her Masters Degree in Cereal Chemistry and Food Technology at North Dakota State University. Rosario was also an Assistant Professor at the University Agraria La Molina, in Lima-Peru.

Rosario has a Bachelor Degree in Biology from the University Mayor de San Marcos Lima-Peru.

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Margarita Bekker
President-elect
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Russian Medical Interpreter
Stanford Medical Center
Palo Alto, CA

 

Russian Interpreter, Trainer and Coach.
 
Margarita immigrated to the United States in 1989 upon graduating from nursing school in St. Petersburg, Russia. After serving as a volunteer interpreter at the San Francisco JCC, she became interested in a career as a Russian interpreter. In 1995 she was accepted to UC Berkeley, earning her degree (with honors) in Slavic Languages and Literature while freelancing as a Russian interpreter.

 

Since 2002, Margarita has worked at Stanford University Medical Center as an interpreter.  She is a certified Bridging the Gap Trainer. She is also a Russian Language Coach at the City College of San Francisco HCI program.

As a member of the CHIA board, Margarita served on the Conference Committee for several years and was also the editor of the CHIA conference syllabus.  She is now the president elect of the CHIA board.

In her free time she enjoys swimming with her sons and taking yoga classes, as well as reading long Russian novels.

 

 

Charles Legier
Treasurer
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Interpreter/Translator
Vargas International
Richmond, CA

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Judit Marin
Secretary
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Freelance Interpreter
Marin Language Services
Oakland, CA

 

Judit Marin is a freelance Spanish interpreter, translator, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a M.A. in Spanish from U.C. Santa Barbara and a B.A. degree in Catalan Philology from the University of Barcelona, Spain. She has been a member of ATA and NCTA for the past 12 years. She is an ATA certified (English>Spanish) translator and has served as a member of the CHIA (California Healthcare Interpreting Association) Board of Directors for the past 4 years. Judit has also participated as an instructor and language coach in numerous trainings for future medical interpreters in the Bay Area and is a seminar leader for court-ordered legal seminars tailored to Hispanics. When she is not interpreting and translating, Judit loves reading and running. 

 

 

Carmen Castro-Rojas
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Project Director
Alameda County Coalition on Language Access in Healthcare
Oakland, CA 

Katharine Allen
Immediate Past President
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Translator/Interpreter
Sierra Sky Interpreting & Translation
Pacific Grove, CA  

 

Katharine Allen is a freelance interpreter, translator, trainer and language consultant in California and owner of Sierra Sky Interpreting and Translation. She works both locally and internationally in medical, legal, educational and environmental fields. Katharine is past President and current co-chair of the Board Development committee. She also served as the Administrative Assistant for the American Translators Association. She provides interpreter training and language access consulting for hospitals. She translates with a Chilean partner under Team Translations. Katharine has an MA in Translation and Interpretation from the Spanish Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

 

 

Jeanette Anders
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Manager
Health & Government Services, Language Line Services
Oro Valley, AZ  

 

Jeanette Anders is Manager of Health Care Strategic Initiatives for Language Line Services  for the past 7 years . She is a native of the United Kingdom, residing several years in Italy and Germany before immigrating to the USA.   She has been an advocate for language access and a volunteer on related issues for over 12 years.  Jeanette has served on the CHIA board in many capacities since 2002 , including co-chairing the Conference Committee, spearheading fundraising and helping with organizational development. She is a member of multiple other state interpreting associations  and advocates for the growth and development of the profession .  Jeanette’s background includes in-depth familiarity of the conception, development and execution of linguistic and cultural access programs within healthcare organizations.  She also serves as a consultant for SAI Global understanding HIPAA to help organizations manage risk and achieve compliance.  

 

 

Nick Arce
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Medical Interpreter/Instructor
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center
Long Beach, CA

 

Nick Arce works as an Interpreter for both Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and PALS for Health Interpreting Agency. He is also an Instructor for the Healthcare Interpreting Certificate Program at California State University, Fullerton. Nick Arce obtained a Master of Library and Information Science degree from San Jose State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Translation and Interpretation Studies and Spanish Linguistics from California State University Long Beach. During his undergraduate career, Nick lived abroad in Madrid, Spain and studied Spanish literature and linguistics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He is the creator of The Translation and Interpretation Blog which seeks to facilitate linguistic research for translators and interpreters by providing a compilation of vital resources and blog entries.

 

 

Rosanna Balistreri
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Freelancer/Linguist
San Diego, CA

 

Rosanna Balistreri is a native Italian speaker with native-like fluency in Spanish.  She obtained a B.A. in Applied Linguistics, a Certificate of teaching English as a Second Language and a M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from San Diego State University (SDSU). Her experience as a linguist includes the creation of Spanish and Italian electronic dictionaries and extensive interpreting, translation, and abstraction of foreign publications in the medical field. As an educator, Rosanna has collaborated with several organizations including SDSU, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College and the Foundation College.  Currently, Rosanna teaches at CSU Fullerton in the Healthcare Interpreting Certificate Program. She is also a member of their Behavioral Health Interpreting Advisory Board.  In 2004, she designed a Language Access Services program at Paradise Valley Hospital to improve the health care outcomes of LEP patients. She is a past Chair of the San Diego Chapter and a member the CHIA Board since 2005.

 

 

James Carmazzi
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Vice President
Cermazzi Interpretation Translation
Elk Grove, CA

 

 

Lourdes L Cerna
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Spanish Medical Interpreter
Kaiser Permanente Hospital
Mt. San Antonio College
Language Line Services
Baldwin Park, CA

 

 

Susan Choi
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Program Manager/Lead Trainer
PALS for Health
Los Angeles, CA

 

Ms. Choi serves as Program Manager at PALS for Health.  The PALS for Health program is one of over 26 multi-ethnic human service programs developed by Special Service for Groups.  Established in 1993, PALS for Health has worked to improve the quality of life for limited-English proficient (LEP) Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities by providing an array of services that help to break down cultural and linguistic barriers to health care access.

Ms. Choi currently supervises the recruitment, testing, training, and continuing education of all interpreters.  Since 2001, Ms. Choi has been responsible for overseeing a grant from The California Endowment that supports the statewide development and implementation of the Connecting Worlds Health Care Interpreter Training© curriculum, Training of Trainers curriculum and the statewide Language Proficiency and Interpreter Readiness exams.  She has the expertise in evaluation methods and works closely with the PALS for Health’s Advisory Council’s Quality Management Committee, to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and cultural appropriateness of the PALS for Health program.  Ms. Choi received her Masters of Science degree in Environmental Health Science and Policy from the University of California, Irvine.

 

 

Nora Goodfriend-Koven MPH
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Instructor and Program Coordinator
City College of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

 

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Danielle A. Lloyd
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Senior Associate Director
American Hospital Association
Bethesda, MD

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Linda Okahara
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Director of Community Services
Asian Health Services
Oakland, CA

 

Linda Okahara is the Community Services Director at Asian Health Services in Oakland, California.  She oversees health education, community outreach, patient navigation and the Language and Cultural Access Program (LCAP).  A language access advocate since 1980, she works to engage immigrant communities in advocating for their language services needs.  Linda co-chairs the Education Committee and as a member of the Standards Committee helped author the California Standards for Health Care Interpreters.  LCAP has developed curriculum and offered health care interpreter trainings since 1994.  LCAP serves as a community language bank serving local health care organizations.

 

 

Jesus Oliva MD
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Director CLAS & Health Professions
Re-entry
COPE Health Solutions
Los Angeles, CA

 

 

Charo Velasquez
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Medical Interpreter and Translator
Stanford Hospital and Clinics
Burlingame, CA

 

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Tatiana Vizcaíno-Stewart
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Training Director
Healthy House
Merced, CA

 

Tatiana Vizcaíno-Stewart is one of the authors of Connecting Worlds, Training for Health Care Interpreters, published by The California Endowment in 2006 and a rater/administrator for their Language Proficiency and Interpreter Readiness Assessments.

Over the past decade, Tatiana has been working with researchers and interpreting scholars to improve the evaluation of interpreters and their training. Other areas of interest include bilingualism, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and the cross-pollination of health care interpreting with other fields.

Presentations in 2008 include An Evolving Interpreter Training Model: Research Insights and Interpreting Competencies at the sixth National Conference on Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations (Diversity RX) and Evaluating Models for Interpreter Training: A New Educational Paradigm at the CHIA Annual Conference.

Tatiana earned a B.A. Degree in International Relations and a Comparative Literature Minor (English/Spanish) from UC Davis (1993) and an M.A. in English/TESOL (2005).  She serves on the CHIA Board since 2005.

 

 

Elizabeth Walsh
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Medical Senior Interpreter
University Medical Center
Las Vegas, NV