Areas of expertise

Engineering

The specialist area for my state exam for translators and interpreters was engineering. In my translating practice I regularly work with written texts in the field of engineering.

Theology

The biggest part of my abroad interpreting and translating experience took place at the Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Russia, where I translated reference books, lecture scripts, exams, students' works, and interpreted lectures and seminars, conferences and expert discussions. My extensive knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek as well as my basic knowledge of biblical Hebrew helped me to raise my profile in biblical sciences, and I am also closely acquainted with other theological disciplines in German and Russian and in most cases also in English through working with American and international guest lecturers.

Church work

Apart from the seminary work as such, I have interpreted at many church events, seminars, conferences and worship services in different parts of Russia and translated sermons, church news, correspondence, materials for seminars etc. A special branch of this work are seminars on clinical pastoral care, including my interpreting during the actual process of counselling.

Mathematics and Geography; Pedagogy

In 1998, I finished my studies in Mathematics and Geography with the first state exam for teachers in secondary education in Kiel, Germany. In Mathematics I used some English source literature, in Geography I worked with English as well as Russian literature. My thesis was focussed on soil science and I used a number of sources in Russian. In the field of mathematics I worked as a research assistant at Saarland University in the research groups of number theory and didactics from 1999–2001. Later I made contact with these disciplines in St. Petersburg.

Pedagogy was an obligatory discipline during these studies, and later I found it again in church pedagogical subjects, so that I have experience with translating and interpreting the terminology.

In addition to these, I am familiar with the terminologies of the following fields through private engagement:

• Baking bread, sourdough treatment
• Bicycles
• Photography
• Biology, biochemistry, plants and animals (partly covered by geographic studies)
• Physics, astronomy, atmospheric phenomena
• Health and medicine
• Computers: maintenance of Windows and Linux systems