Thorsten Afflerbach MA is head of the Disability Division of the Council of Europe. After following vocational training in foreign trade in Hamburg, in 1991 he obtained an MA degree in Sociology, Economic History, and English Literature and Linguistics from Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany. In the 1990s, he has worked as a university lector in the UK and a vocational training manager at a Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Germany. Since 1995 he has been a member of the General Secretariat of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France), in the Directorate General of Social Cohesion, and he has worked as the vice-chairman of the internal Council of Europe’s Equal Opportunities board. He has published on European economic history, international disability and health policies.

Anna-Lena Nilsson started working as a sign language interpreter in the late 70s, and interpreted at international conferences since 1983. She obtained a diploma in sign language interpreting from Stockholm University, where she later received a BA degree in English, Linguistics, and Swedish Sign Language. Currently she is doing PhD research on sign language at Stockholm University, where she teaches sign language theory and interpreting.

Barbara Moser-Mercer is Professor of Conference Interpreting at the École de traduction et d'interprétation (ETI), University of Geneva, and Director of the Conference Interpreting Program. She studied translation and interpreting at the University of Innsbruck, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics at the University of Rochester, N.Y. and her doctoral dissertation examined the possibilities of cognitive modeling in simultaneous interpreting. She has co-authored two books on interpreting and has published papers on aptitude testing for conference interpreters and on various aspects of interpreters' working conditions. Her research has focused on the acquisition of expertise in interpreting, on human factors and their relevance to working conditions in interpreting, and on cognitive parameters in remote interpreting. She is active in the training of interpreter trainers both at ETI, as well as for the European institutions and for AIIC in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, an active conference interpreter and member of AIIC, and convener of AIIC's Research Commission.

Gardy van Gils was trained as a social work professional and worked for fifteen years in partner/family therapy sessions for the deaf teams of the Dutch mental health organization RIAGG. She has been teaching Deaf Culture at the NGT interpreter/teacher program at the Hogeschool Utrecht since 2004. Since 2007, she also works as a researcher there in the research group on Deaf Studies headed by lector Beppie van den Bogaerde. Her MA thesis completed in 2007 was titled ‘Deaf sign language interpreters: partners or competitors?’. It reported on an investigation into the position of Deaf interpreters in general and how regular (hearing) sign language interpreters as well as Deaf people viewed their work. Gardy van Gils regularly teaches national and international workshops and lectures on the collaboration between deaf and hearing people.

John Walker PGDip, Convenor of Deaf Studies (University of Sussex) Training Consultant (Chereme Ltd)
John Walker's main focuses over the last 10 years has been concerned with the professional development of sign language interpreters which has included 'co-interpreting', 'assertion' and 'mentoring'; these programmes have brought approaches to professional practice to the field of interpreting. He has also completed his own interpreting qualification at University of Durham that actively promotes the qualification of Deaf Interpreters. The activity of interpreting amongst Deaf people preceded the current profession of sign language interpreters (Adam and Stone 2007, Collins and Walker 2005, Folchi 1997) ; John does not wish to be seen as a model for Deaf Interpreters (as he is quite new to this work) but he actively promotes Deaf Interpreters as future professional career. In his capacity as a Convenor of Deaf Studies, John is piloting a new MA in Sign Language Interpreting to start in October 2008 that will be open to both Deaf and hearing interpreters.

Cynthia Jane Kellett Bidoli is Associate Professor of Consecutive Interpretation from spoken Italian to English at the Advanced School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators (SSLMIT), University of Trieste. Her research interests lie in lexicography and interpretation quality assessment with particular focus on non-verbal aspects of consecutive delivery, which gradually led to an interest in non-verbal communication and sign language interpreting. She has since focussed on specific aspects of cultural and linguistic mediation between the English speaking world and the Italian deaf signing community, publishing several papers and co-editing two books. Her current research has now turned to the compilation (in progress) of a multimodal trilingual electronic glossary of LSP (Language for Special Purposes) for students of Italian Sign Language (LIS) and the audiovisual translation of films and TV programmes for deaf people. She is coordinator of the LIS course offered at the SSLMIT since 1998.