The project team is integrated by Tanya Escudero (project leader), Mari-Liis Jakobson, Ivan Polynin, and Jekaterina Maadla, from Tallinn University; Simo K. Määttä (Principal Investigator) Tuija Kinnunen and Svetlana Probirskaja, from the University of Helsinki; and Alise Vitola (Principal Investigator) and Sanita Putnina from the NGO Creative Ideas (Riga).
Tanya Escudero
Research Fellow in Translation Studies, Tallinn University
ETIS
Tanya holds an MA in Translation for International Communication and a PhD in Translation (University of Vigo) and is currently a Research Fellow at Tallinn University working at the intersection between translation and migration. Her focus is on exploring how translation practices can foster the integration of migrant communities in their host country. She is working on her postdoctoral project “Ideology in Translation. Political Discourse on Migration in the Media”, funded by the Estonian Research Council, which studies the migration narratives created by news translators and their impact on their audience. She has been a visiting researcher at Queen’s University Belfast, Newcastle University and Tallinn University. Her main research interests are translation theory, migration and translation, language rights, and ideology.
Contact: escudero@tlu.ee
Mari-Liis Jakobson
Associate Professor of Political Sociology, Tallinn University
ETIS
Mari-Liis holds a PhD in government and politics from Tallinn University and is currently working as an associate professor of political sociology at Tallinn University School of Governance, Law and Society (SOGOLAS). Her research focus is primarily related to the politics and policy of migration and political migrant transnationalism, but she is also interested in political crisis communication and crisis leadership. Previously, she has also worked as a researcher at the Estonian national contact point of the European Migration Network and served as a visiting scholar at University College London (UK) and Yale University (USA). She serves as a country expert for the GLOBALCIT network and a member of the supervisory board of the Estonian Integration Foundation.
Contact: mari-liis.jakobson@tlu.ee
Ivan Polynin
Junior Research Fellow, Tallinn University
ETIS
Ivan holds an MA in Political Science (CEU) and is currently doing his PhD at Tallinn University. His primary research interests are connected with research on social identity and institutional domains of the Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia. His research experience in this area includes multiple projects most notable of which are MINSOC (2020) under the Marie Curie Fellowship and the Estonian Integration monitoring 2020. Ivan also works as an International Relations specialist at Narva College of University of Tartu, which offers a unique comparative perspective and a practical insight into his research interests connected to the PhD and any project engaging ethnic minorities or migrants.
Contact: ivan.polynin@tlu.ee
Jekaterina Maadla
Conference and Community Interpreting Lecturer, Tallinn University
ETIS
Jekaterina holds an MA in Conference Interpreting (Russian, English and Estonian languages) (Tallinn University) and is currently a lecturer of Community and Conference Interpreting at Tallinn University (programme co-funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation). She has been working as an interpreter at the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, Harju County Court, Estonian Health Board, Estonian Refugee Council and other public and private institutions for more than ten years and has strong personal and professional ties with ethnolinguistic minorities in Estonia. Jekaterina´s research interests are sociolinguistics, accessibility of community interpreting services, and professional development of community interpreters.
Contact: kmaadla@tlu.ee
Simo K. Määttä
Associate Professor of Translation Studies, University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki Research Portal
Simo’s research focuses on the wider social context and consequences of language use, linguistic rights, and inclusion and exclusion via language use. His work is inspired mostly by sociologically oriented translation studies, critical sociolinguistics, and critical discourse studies.
He currently works on translation and interpreting policies in migration settings, public service interpreting (community interpreting), and legal interpreting, including asylum interpreting. He analyzes language ideologies, the interplay between spoken and written language, and the impact of language variation in situations in which the interpreter and the migrant both use a language that is not their first language, for example English or French (lingua franca interpreting). In addition, his research interests include the translation of language variation, the theory of discourse and ideology, and hate speech, performativity, and freedom of speech especially in online environments.
Contact: simo.maatta@helsinki.fi
Tuija Kinnunen
Lecturer of Finnish-German Translation, University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki Research Portal
Tuija holds a Ph.D. in Translation Studies. Her research publications cover writings in legal translation, certified translation, court interpreting, translators’ agency, multimodality in interpreter-mediated interaction, linguistic rights and accessibility, and the role of translation studies in defining mediation. Currently she is interested in the role of translation policy in governance of multilingual societies.
Contact: tuija.t.kinnunen@helsinki.fi
Svetlana Probirskaja
Lecturer of Finnish-Russian Translation, University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki Research Portal
Svetlana holds a PhD in Translation Studies from Tampere University, Finland, and is currently a lecturer of Finnish-Russian Translation at the University of Helsinki. She has specialized in legal translation. The theme of her PhD thesis was governmental treaties between Russia and Finland in the light of translational keyword analysis. Recently, her research interests have included wartime translation, everyday life translation practices, multilingual encounters, translation as a form of aid, and peer translation among immigrants. Her research project Translational Spaces between Russia and Finland in the Multilingual World was financed by the Kone Foundation from 2015 to 2018.
Contact: svetlana.probirskaja@helsinki.fi
Linda Rolig
Research assistant, University of Helsinki
Linkedin profile
Linda is currently finishing her MA in Translation Studies from the University of Helsinki, Finland. Beyond her language studies on German, English and French, she has also studied politics and communication. She did her internship as a Schuman-Trainee to the European Parliament. Her master’s thesis focused on examining the multilingual crisis communication on the municipal and organizational level during COVID-19 pandemic. Her research interests include language ideologies, translation policies and migration, linguistic rights and accessibility.
Contact: linda.rolig@helsinki.fi
Alise Vitola
Researcher, Association Creative Ideas
LinkedIn
Alise holds a PhD in Economics from Riga Technical University, Latvia, and is currently a researcher and lecturer in Association Creative Ideas, Hotel School Riga and Riga Technical University. She has more than 15 years’ experience in policy analysis and research and has participated in several integration projects as a researcher and trainer. Alise has gained international experience in Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), Indiana university (US) and Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), where she was a research fellow from 2016 to 2017. Her research interests include society integration, civic society and comparative socioeconomic development.
Contact: vitola.alise@gmai.com
Sanita Putniņa
Project Manager and Researcher, Association Creative Ideas
LinkedIn
Sanita holds a Master Degree in European studies from Turku University, Finland. She is the founder and chairwoman of Association Creative Ideas with more than 20 years’ experience in project management and external evaluation in the non-governmental and public sector. Sanita has gained international experience in Lappeenranta University of Technology and Turku University in Finland and the European Information Centre in St Albans, the United Kingdom. She has managed several migrant integration and integration policy development projects in Latvia.
Contact: putnina.sanita@gmail.com