Team

Mireia Vargas Urpí
Principal investigator
Serra Húnter fellow at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and East Asian Studies of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies by the UAB, MA in Professional Chinese-Spanish Translation and Interpreting, MA in Research in Contemporary East Asia, BA in Translation and Interpreting (English and Chinese) (UAB). She lectures Chinese at the Degree in Translation and Interpreting and at the Degree in East Asian Studies, and she also teaches Mediation and Liaison Interpreting at the MA in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (UAB). Her research interests are translation and interpreting from Chinese into Catalan and Spanish, public service interpreting and intercultural mediation (with a special focus on the Chinese community), intercultural communication and non-verbal language. She is member of the research groups MIRAS and TXICC.
https://gent.uab.cat/mireiavargasurpi/en

Marta Arumí
She holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a PhD in Translation and Interpreting from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where she also won the special doctoral award. She holds a Master’s Degree in Conference Interpreting from the Universidad de La Laguna and a Master’s Degree in Training for Trainers in Conference Interpreting at the School of Translation and Interpreting from the University of Geneva. She teaches conference interpreting and public service interpreting at the Department of Translation and Interpreting and East Asian Studies of the UAB. She is also the coordinator of the Official Master's Degree in Conference Interpreting (MUIC) of the UAB. Her research focuses mainly on the didactics of conference interpreting and on public services interpreting. She is the author of more than 30 specialized articles in national and international journals and has supervised several doctoral theses. She is the coordinator of MIRAS research group (2017SGR1222) since its creation in 2009 and has led several funded research projects.

Carme Bestué
She holds a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and graduated in law from the University of Barcelona. Since 2003, she’s a lecturer in the Department of Translation and Interpretation of the UAB, where she teaches translation and introductory comparative law courses in grade and master. She is the author of:  Contracts translated: the translation of the license agreements for use of computer programs (Tirant lo Blanch, 2013) and more than twenty publications including journal articles and book chapters. She was a member of the research group Tradumàtica and, since 2010, is a member of MIRAS group. She has participated in more than ten research projects financed in competitive calls. She has taught seminars in various national and foreign universities.  

Anna Gil-Bardají
She holds a degree in Arabic Studies at the University of Barcelona and a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She teaches Arabic-Spanish/Catalan translation and Arabic Language at the Department of Translation and Interpretation and East Asian Studies (UAB), she is the director of the Master in Contemporary Arabic Studies (MEAC) and coordinates the module on Public Service Interpreting of the Official Master in Translation and Intercultural Studies (UAB). She also teaches at the Master in Arabic and Islamic World (UB) since 2001.
She is the author of the book Traducir al-Andalus: el discurso del Otro en el arabismo español  (“Translating al-Andalus: the discourse of the Other in the Spanish Arabism”, published by Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) and of some thirty publications among journal articles and book chapters. She is a member of MIRAS group since its creation in 2009 and since 2004 has participated in seven funded research projects, both nationally and internationally. She has taught seminars in various foreign universities and translated a dozen books from Arabic and French into Spanish and Catalan.
https://gent.uab.cat/annagilbardaji/

Mariana Orozco
She holds a degree and a doctorate in Translation and Interpreting and won the special doctoral award of the UAB with her PhD Dissertation "Building and validating measuring instruments for the acquisition of translation competence". She teaches general and specialised translation from English to Spanish as well as Methodology of Translation at the undergraduate Degree in Translation and Interpreting and at the MA in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is also the coordinator of the Translation and Intercultural Mediation programme of this MA. She also coordinates the MA in Legal Translation and Court Interpreting of the UAB.
She is the author of the book Metodología de la traducción directa del inglés al español  ("Methodology for English to Spanish Translation", ed. Comares, 2012) as well as more than 30 translation journal articles and book chapters. Her research focuses mainly on the methodology of translation and on specialised translation. She has been part of three consolidated research groups and is currently a member of MIRAS (2017SGR1222). Since 1996, she has participated in a dozen research funded projects of European, national and international scope, and has been a visiting researcher in the UK on several occasions. For more information: https://gent.uab.cat/marianaorozco/

Gema Rubio
She has a PhD in linguistic communication and multilingual mediation from Pompeu Fabra University and a degree in English philology from the Complutense University of Madrid. She has worked as a researcher in the department of political and social sciences at Pompeu Fabra University and in the department of English philology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Since 2019, she is a lecturer in the Translation and Interpreting Department of the UAB, where she teaches various subjects of English language, research methodology and translation in both undergraduate and master studies. She is the author of more than ten publications between articles in specialized magazines and book chapters. She is a member of the MIRAS group. He has participated in several research projects financed in competitive calls and has given lectures at various national and foreign universities.

Xus Ugarte Ballester
PhD in Translation and Interpreting and graduated in Romance Philology (French). She is a lecturer at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages at the University of Vic- Central University of Catalonia.
She teaches interpreting (English into Catalan and Spanish) at the Degree in Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages and at the Master's Degree in Specialized Translation), as well as translation from French and English.
Her research focus on: public service interpreting; history of translation in Catalonia; translation, gender and censorship; proverb translation. She is a member of the following research groups: TEXLICO (Contemporary Literary Texts: Study, Edition and Translation) from UVic-UCC and MIRAS (Mediation and Interpretation: Research in the Social Area) from UAB and works with GETHLIC group (Gender Studies Group) from UVic-UCC.

Begoña Ruiz de Infante Ortiz de Zárate
She holds a BA in Romanic Philology, a Degree in Modern Mandarin and an MA in Immigration and Intercultural Education. She currently works as translator, interpreter and mediator specialized in Chinese language and community at public services. She has worked in several city councils: Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Badalona and Barcelona, where she currently works in the XEIX project. Consultancy, research, translation and mediation or training for the Migration office at the Generalitat de Catalunya, Education Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya, UnescoCat, Casa Asia, Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Fundación Instituto Confucio de Barcelona, Pymec, Confederació de Comerç de Catalunya, Agencia de Salud pública de Barcelona and other organisations of the third sector. She is author of Bali, yo soy de China (La Galer) and Mirades Xineses (Save the Children Catalunya).

Eva Maciocco
She holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting (UAB) and an MA in Immigration Management (UPF). She is a translator, interpreter, intercultural mediator and interculturality technician specialized in South Asia. From 2014 to 2020 she worked in the intercultural project XEIX at the Barcelona city council, which was awarded with the Diversity Advantage Challenge of the European Council (2015). She has participated as expert in South Asia in various projects of social action and research for public institutions (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Immigration Office of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Confederació de Comerç de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council, Casa Asia, Barcelona Activa, etc.), organisations of the third sector and mass media. She is member or the MIRAS research group.

Abeya Aldabbagh
Lecturer of Conference Interpreting (Ar<>En) at Princess Nourah University, Saudi Arabia. Doctoral Student in the PhD Program of Translation, Interpreting, and Intercultural Studies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, Dissertation Title: “Experimental Studies on the Effectiveness of a Subskills Approach in the Training of Simultaneous Interpreting”. MA in Conference Interpreting, The University of Manchester, UK. MA in Applied Linguistics, Brock University, Canada. Bachelor in English Translation King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Freelance Interpreter (Ar<>En). Research interests: Interpreter training, interpreting pedagogy, interpreting subskills, cognitive processing.
 

Huidong Chi
Is a PhD candidate at the Translation and Language Sciences PhD program of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She holds a Master in Translation and Intercultural Studies from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, a degree in Hispanic Philology by Harbin Normal University and a degree in Law by Heilongjiang University. Between 2014 and 2015 she did an internship as teacher of Spanish Studies and Latin-American Literature at Heilongjiang International University. As a young researcher she has focused on the study of court interpreting between Spanish and Chinese based on a corpus of real recorded hearings. She is member of MIRAS research group since 2017. She has presented her research at international conferences about translation and East Asian studies. 

Macarena Dehnhardt
She holds a Degree in Hispanic Language and Literature (specialized in Linguistics) by Universidad de Chile. She studied the MA in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (Translation Studies path) by the UAB, where she started her research on Haitian-Chilean linguistic and cultural mediation in public services in Chile. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Translation and Intercultural Studies PhD program of the UAB. Her research topic focuses on the translation policies in public services to overcome communicative barriers between Haitian and Chilean, and on how these translation policies are materialized in specific initiatives of mediated communication in healthcare and education. She has been awarded with a grant by the Chilean Ministry of Education to pursue her PhD.

Judith Raigal
She holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting from Pompeu Fabra University (2013) and a MA in Translation Studies from the same institution. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of English and German Studies of the Rovira i Virgili University and her doctoral research focuses on court interpreting in Catalonia. Furthermore, she teaches legal translation as adjunct professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where she teaches legal translation. She has been translating professionally since 2013 as freelancer. Her expertise lies in legal translation and she works with English, German, French, Spanish and Catalan. 

Aran Romero Moreno

He is a social and cultural anthropologist. PhD student in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He has completed the MA degree in Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Barcelona and the Bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies at the UAB. He has a second degree in Audiovisual Media from the Polytechnic University of Mataró. He has done fieldwork in China and published in various specialist journals. His main research interests are in contemporary Chinese society, urban anthropology and political anthropology. He is also interested in all the processes of intercultural mediation that take place in modern times.

Istar Montull Mussach
External advisor

She is a biologist and education professional. She is currently a PhD student in the Education program at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She has studied the Master's Degree in Teacher Training at the University of Girona (UdG) and has also completed a postgraduate course in Immigration: Rights and social cohesion with the CER-Migraciones research group. She is currently collaborating with the EMIGRA research group. Her main research interests are the education and inclusion processes of migrants and her research focuses on Amazigh people both at their origin and in Catalonia.