Hello!

Since you are here, you probably know that I am an Arabic to English and English to Arabic language professional. To toot my own horn a little, I am an excellent Arabic to English and English to Arabic professional. After all, I have been using my Arabic skills in a professional setting on a daily basis for approximately 35 years and have been a professional translator for 22.

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I am a native speaker of both English and Arabic. Born in North Carolina, I moved to Cairo, Egypt with my mother at the age of five, and I lived there for 25 years. All of my formal education took place in Alexandria and Cairo.

For many years, my mother and my Egyptian stepfather worked from home. She, a social anthropologist, and he, a commercial advertising photographer, gave me a strong background in different aspects of how people communicate. Each of them helped and encouraged me to explore different aspects of the language and culture in Egypt and, later, the Middle East. My mother introduced me to the underprivileged parts of Egypt, while my stepfather introduced me to the world of business and advertising.

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I studied English literature in college before I began my career as an intern at a major multinational advertising agency, Leo Burnett's local affiliate in Cairo. I was quickly promoted to Graphic Designer at 18 and Associate Art Director at 19. While there, I learned to be a commercial artist, copywriter, graphic designer, and art director. I continued my career in advertising in the Middle East for 13 years and won multiple awards for graphic design and creative direction along the way.

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I moved back to the United States in 2001 and got a job in Advertising at a small B2B advertising agency in North Carolina. In early 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, I decided that I had to find out if the United States needed my Arabic skills. Just a few weeks after I posted my résumé on Monster.com, I was in Bahrain supporting the United States Air Force as a linguist. This began my second career.

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Since I became a full-time language professional, I have translated and edited everything from sensitive government documents to books about German technology, from newspaper articles to international lawsuits involving corporate and government fraud, from birth certificates to camera manuals, and from advertising for major clients to websites for global brands and training courses for the Iraqi military. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to be the lead linguist for a cutting-edge human language technology project for the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for 10 years, during which I mastered my skills with computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, translation memories (TM), machine translation (MT), optical character recognition (OCR), speech-to-text, text-to-speech, text-to-text, and other advanced language technologies.

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In addition to my 25 years in Egypt, I have been an Arabic linguist in the United States, Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait. I have also traveled extensively in Tunisia, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates.

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During my years as a linguist, I have met and become a member of a team of excellent Arabic linguists with whom I often collaborate, some of whom I have trained and mentored in person. We often work together when we can and as needed for large projects, so rest assured that no matter how big your project may be, you will be covered.

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In short, if you are in need of an Arabic language professional, I can help you. If, for some reason, I cannot help you myself, I can probably point you toward somebody who can.