Members of the research group

Mira Kadrić

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Mira Kadrić-Scheiber (ORCID) is full professor for Interpreting Studies and Didactics of Translation, and head of the research group “TransLaw”.

Mira Kadrić’s research focuses especially on empirical work on legal, political and diplomatic interpreting, and pedagogical issues of Interpreting and Translation Studies, drawing on her practical experience as an interpreter for the courts, public services, and political institutions. She has authored 3 monographs, co-authored 3 textbooks and 2 dictionaries, edited or co-edited 10 books and published about 60 articles and book chapters on interpreting, translation, and procedural law. In the area of legal interpreting, Mira Kadrić’s work includes transdisciplinary empirical and pedagogical research, and social and ethical issues of interpreting in a superdiverse society. Her most recent monography Gerichts- und Behördendolmetschen aus translatorischer und prozessrechtlicher Perspektive (2019) is the result of a decade of theoretical and empirical research in the area of legal interpreting including findings from asylum, courtroom and police interpreting, and action research from interpreter training. Another recent and relevant research activity in the area of legal interpreting was the project TransLaw (2018-2019) funded by DG Justice with Mira Kadrić as principal investigator and project leader. The project resulted in the implementation of Transcultural Law Clinics in four EU member states.

Ana-Maria Bodo-Hartmann

Ana-Maria Bodo-Hartmann, BA BA MA is a lecturer, researcher, programme manager and interpreter.

As a lecturer at the Centre for Translation Studies of the University of Vienna, she has been teaching both bachelor’s and master’s classes for several years. Furthermore, she is a programme manager at the University’s Postgraduate Center, where she is responsible for the continuing education course and the master’s in court and public service interpreting and for the certificate course “Interpreting with New Media: CAI Tools, Telephone and Video Interpreting“.

She graduated with an MA in interpreting and is currently pursuing a PhD in interpreting studies. Her current research is situated at the intersection of interpreting studies and university-level continuing education. For her PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Mira Kadrić, she is exploring the implications and perspectives on the individual and institutional level regarding continuing education courses in the field of interpreting. In this context, she is striving to gather perceptions about the field in general and the aforementioned courses in particular.

Christian Grafl

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Grafl (ORCID) is full professor for Criminology and Criminalistics.

His main research topics are the type and extent of sanctions as well as effectiveness of different kinds of penal reactions, juvenile delinquency, crime prevention and criminalistics, especially forensic handwriting investigation. In the last years he mainly dealt with violent crime, matters of safety (statistical data and feeling of safety), crime policy, supervision and alternative sanctions, sentencing as well as topics of forensic sciences.

Recent collaboration with Interpreting Studies was the development of a Transcultural Law Clinic at the University of Vienna which was carried out in the research project on “Exploring Legal Interpreting Service Paths and Transcultural Law Clinics for persons suspected or accused of crime”. The collaboration included especially a joint course on Questioning techniques from the criminological and translational perspective and a pilot project on transcultural law clinics. The lesson learned from the above collaboration included clearly that legal professionals and legal interpreters have to be brought together earlier, both in basic and experimental research.

Ivana Havelka

Dr. Ivana Havelka, Bakk.phil. MA (ORCID) is a postdoctoral university assistant at the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna and postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

She teaches and conducts research on technology-assisted dialogue interpreting in courts and in public service settings, and on transdisciplinary translational work. Her research interests include multimodal perception in technology-mediated and -supported interpreting settings, hybrid forms of translation and interpreting, and digital skills in interpreting.

In her 2018 monograph “Videodolmetschen im Gesundheitswesen” (Frank & Timme), she examines video-mediated interpreting strategies in healthcare.

Sylvi Rennert

Mag. Dr. Sylvi Rennert (u:cris) is a lecturer and researcher at the Centre for Translation Studies of the University of Vienna and has 15 years of experience as a conference, public service and diplomatic interpreter for German, English, Finnish and Spanish.

Her research interests are didactics and quality of interpreting, particularly in dialogic settings. She was a researcher in the FWF project Quality in Simultaneous Interpreting (2008-2010) and most recently postdoctoral researcher and project coordinator for the DG Justice project TransLaw (2018-2019), where she helped develop and implement Transcultural Law Clinics.

Her first monograph, Redeflüssigkeit und Dolmetschqualität. Wirkung und Bewertung, was published in 2019. She has also published a number of papers in journals and publications in the field of Interpreting Studies, including a contribution to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, and has been a reviewer for various journals in the field.

Monika Stempkowski

Univ.-Ass. MMag. Dr. Monika Stempkowski (ORCID) holds master degrees in both law and psychology, which she obtained from the universities of Vienna and Urbino, Italy.

During her studies she worked for several years in the field of addiction prevention before she concluded her education as a clinical and health psychologist. She is also registered with the Federal Ministry of Justice as a certified mediator. Her focus lies on the topics of divorce, inheritance and company succession. 

Since 2012 Monika Stempkowski has been working as a researcher at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Vienna in the field of criminology (chair Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Grafl). Her research focusses on the topics of mentally ill offenders, drug crime, legal psychology, interrogation and victimology. Additionally, she is a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt.

Simone Uran

Simone Uran, BA MA is a university assistant the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna. She studied Transcultural Communication and Translation in Vienna and Bologna and graduated with an MA in conference interpreting.

Currently she is pursuing a PhD in interpreting studies. For her PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Mira Kadrić, she is investigating interpreting during court proceedings in asylum and related matters at the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG). She is also a freelance interpreter and translator for English and Italian.