Faculty

is a Full Professor of Spanish and a founding director of the Graduate Program in Interpreting and Translation Studies at Wake Forest University ( North Carolina, USA). For over 15 years she has been teaching Spanish-English interpreting and translation as well as courses in applied interpreting studies at a graduate and undergraduate level. She has also taught translation at Yale University. Since 1988 she has been working as a free-lance interpreter, translator, terminologist and cultural consultant in Polish, Spanish, English, French as her main working languages and several others as her C languages in Europe and the Americas. 

Prof. Dr. Furmanek’s research and publications focus on professionalization of interpreting, psychological and socio-institutional contexts of interpreters’ work, curriculum development and languages in contact. She has published extensively on dialogue interpreting, including a pioneering work on faith-related interpreting, and has also worked as a chief-interpreter during large confessional gatherings over the last 20 years. She has interpreted, among others, for Saint John Paul II, at the International Eucharistic Congress, Taizé meetings and many other theological and evangelization events, in particular those related to Catholic youth movements. She has recruited, trained and, as chief-interpreter, led a team of non-professional and professional religious interpreters for Pope Francis’ visit at the World Youth Days in 2016 in Kraków, Poland and in 2019 in Panama.