Student Assistants

Sarah Aldawood, Communication and Outreach Assistant  Summer 2020 - present. Sarah Aldawood is a Ph.D. student in the Comparative Literature Program. She received her MA in the Theory and Practice of Translation from SOAS, University of London, and her BA in English Translation from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. Her research interests include the sociology of translation, intersemiotic translation, transfiction and modern Arabic literature. She is a native speaker of Arabic.

	Irina Lifszyc, Educational Programming Support Assistant  Fall 2020 - present. Irina Lifszyc is an English-Spanish translator pursuing her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics in the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Program. Irina became a translator after graduating from college in Argentina in 2014. While pursuing her M.A. in Spanish, she worked for the Infectious and Tropical Disease Institute transcribing and translating interviews conducted by researchers in rural communities of Ecuador. She has also served as a volunteer translator for Defense for Children International. Irina has played a fundamental role in establishing the Translation Center's educational opportunities that aim to support bilingual school staff while improving the provision of language access services and supports. She collaborates with the Translation Center by providing support to workshop facilitators and participants, and scheduling and conducting language assessments and translation evaluations.
	Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki, Interpreter and Translator in Education Workshop Series Instructor and Participant Support Spring 2021 - present. Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki (A.A. University of ORT, Uruguay, BA in Audiovisual Communication, University of Vic, Spain) is a Ph.D. student in the Comparative Literature Program at UMass Amherst. She has worked in translation, interpretation, and education for more than a decade and has taught "Culture, Gender, and Environment" to unaccompanied minor refugees in Barcelona. Her main interests are the representations of gender and sexuality, the effects of film on society, and the interaction between literature and film. She is a native speaker of French and Greek, and her languages also include Spanish and Italian.
	Paulina Ochoa-Figueroa, Assistant for Interpreter and Translator in Education Programming Summer 2020 - present. Paulina Ochoa-Figueroa is originally from Michoacan, Mexico. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Program. She is working on her doctoral dissertation, which explores the translation practices of three women writers: Victoria Kent (1892-1987), Aurora Correa (1930-2008), and Valeria Luiselli (1983- ). She is actively involved with the Translation Center, holds a graduate certificate in Translation and Interpreting Studies, and teaches Spanish-English translation and Spanish language and literature. Since 2020, she has collaborated with the Translation Center and its partners, including the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, to professionalize school interpreters and translators, and to improve language access literacy throughout schools.
	Amelia Yeager, Production Editor for Metamorphoses January 2023 - present. Amelia Yeager (she/her) is a graduate student in the history department at UMass Amherst and production editor for Metamorphoses, the journal of the five-college faculty seminar on literary translation. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Kenyon College, where she studied British literature, art history, and creative writing. Her writing can be found in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review Online, Full House Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. At UMass, Amelia researches the cultural legacies of labor in the Transatlantic world, particularly the material culture of labor in rural areas. She plans to continue writing and working in the museum field after graduation.