Translation Center Staff

Barbara Zecchi, Director

Barbara Zecchi received her PhD from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1998. After teaching at different universities in Spain (University Carlos III of Madrid, University of Valencia, University of Cádiz) and in the US (Saint Mary's College of California, California State University and the Johns Hopkins) she joined the University of Massachusetts in 2005 and was promoted to full professor in 2015. At UMass she is a faculty member in the Dept. of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and in the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies. Since 2014 she has been directing the UMass Translation Center and in 2016 she also assumed the co-direction of the Digital Humanities Initiative Program.

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Görkem Cilam, Assistant Director

The Assistant Director, Görkem Cilam, has a BA from Mount Holyoke College in Economics and German Cultural Studies. She is fluent in Turkish, English and German. In addition to her passion for languages, she brings to the Translation Center financial expertise from her prior engagements as a business manager and a management consultant. Most recently, she became a finalist in the EntreClub / Mass Ventures Business Competition. She also works with the Five College Center for the Study of World Languages, developing a web site with language learning materials for Turkish.

Shawn Lindholm, Project Manager

Project Manager Shawn Lindholm has a BA in French from Rutgers University and has trained in conference interpretation with Professor Dan Martin at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She also speaks some Spanish and Russian and has five years of administrative experience in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Río Hernández, Project Manager

Project Manager Rio Hernandez has a BA in History and Asian Studies (double major) from Cornell University and an MA in Translation Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a native Spanish speaker with proficiency in Japanese and some knowledge of Thai.