Translator from Spanish/Catalan into English, PhD in Chemistry 2006, MSc in Economic Evaluation in Health Care 2014

I am a translator and proofreader working from Spanish and Catalan into English. My main field of expertise has historically been synthetic and computational chemistry (my PhD topic covered organic magnets and crystallography), and I have recently been awarded a Master's degree in health economics. The subject areas in which I am most active therefore also include health and social care, health economics, medicine, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. I also spent about a year working solely on translations of web pages for financial institutions and public authorities in 2009-10.

My background and experience:

I finished my PhD in Chemistry in the UK (University of Cambridge) at the end of 2005 and then worked as a post-doctoral chemistry researcher in Valencia and Barcelona for almost three years. There is a huge demand in Spain for native English writers with a scientific background as the international scientific community publishes almost exclusively in English and, after a particularly busy period of correcting and translating other people's work, I realised that I had been spending more time on this than on my own research! I decided then that I should take my enjoyment of translation and editing more seriously, and so I spent a few months freelancing and started to learn the business. The ProZ website was a huge help during this time and most of my clients have found me through here.

After spending some months working as a freelance translator I accepted a full-time job offer from an automatic translation company in Barcelona, translating financial texts and improving the results of the automatic translator. However, I realised after several months there that I missed scientific projects, so I cut my hours with the company to allow me to take on scientific and technical texts as a freelancer. This worked well, and in the latter half of 2010 I was offered a job in London as a proofreader in an international life sciences consultancy, so after having been in Spain for a total of five years, I decided to move back to the UK.

On returning to London, I spent 3.5 years proofreading and editing business intelligence reports and strategy documents covering various geographical and disease areas for global big pharma clients. I also managed our growing team of in-house and freelance proofreaders across the UK and US. During this time I completed a part-time Master’s in Economic Evaluation in Health Care at City University London, and my main job is now as an academic researcher in health economics at a clinical trials unit within UCL (University College London). This return to academia has allowed me to resume my freelance translation work, and I now specialise in both chemistry and health economics, as well as the wider fields of medicine, health care and health policy, and science and technology.

I promise to:

• Use the best and most appropriate professional scientific language in all scientific texts and documents;
• Provide high quality translations whose style is appropriate to the source text;
• Use fluent language and make the document easy to read and accessible to the audience at which it is aimed;
• Consistently produce work of the highest possible standards, to the exact specifications of the client.

You should use me for your translation and proofreading projects because:

• I am reliable and realistic and I guarantee to have the work done on time;
• I am both an excellent scientist and an excellent linguist. This is a rare combination and I advise you to take advantage of my particular skills for your projects;
• I will provide exactly the style of translation that you require, and I will exceed your expectations in terms of the quality of my work;
• I continually and systematically check my work, as self-assessment of the quality of my work forms a fundamental part of the process;
• You will be provided with accurate, high quality translations that adhere as closely as possible to the true meaning and spirit of the original text, and that yet read as genuine, first-hand English.

Some of my projects include: TECHNICAL/SCIENTIFIC
SP>EN, EN>EN: Translation and proofreading of research articles on studies of genetic diseases, psychiatric treatments and cancer treatments
SP>EN: translation of 3500-word technical specifications document on installation of a computing network
CA>EN: proofreading 300-page PhD thesis on a computational chemistry project
SP>EN: correcting and partially translating a 4500-word article on research into Huntington's disease
SP>EN: translation of 5000-word glossary of biotechnological terms
SP>EN: translation of two documents of 1000 words supporting a company's bid to work on hydrogeological projects
SP>EN: Translation of legal and medical documents for clinical trial applications and publication of results

OTHER
SP>EN, CA>EN: translation and correction of websites of Spanish savings banks, insurance companies, energy providers and national and international energy regulators
CA>EN translation of marketing documents relating to artistic works
SP>EN translation of MBA admissions exams and course materials at IESE Business School
CA>EN translation of song lyrics for a concert of traditional Catalan music