AVT Lab is a research group working on audiovisual translation
and media accessibility.
Current members
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Agnieszka Szarkowska
Agnieszka Szarkowska is University Professor in the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, Head of the research group Audiovisual Translation Lab (AVT Lab), and Honorary Research Associate at University College London.
Agnieszka is a researcher, academic teacher, ex-translator, and translator trainer. Her research projects include eye tracking studies on subtitling, audio description, multilingualism in subtitling for the deaf and the hard of hearing, and respeaking. Drawing on her passion for teaching, she has co-founded AVT Masterclass, an online platform for professional audiovisual translation education.
Agnieszka is a member of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) and a recipient of the Jan Ivarsson Award 2022.
Contact: a.szarkowska@uw.edu.pl |
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Łukasz Dutka
Interpreter and audiovisual translator, member of the Polish Association of Audiovisual Translators STAW. He is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, working on a thesis on live subtitling with respeaking.
As a practitioner of subtitling and a pioneer of respeaking in Poland, he contributes to research in these two areas on a regular basis. He studied issues of reduction levels and expected reading speed in subtitling as a part of “Subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing on digital television” research project. He speaks Polish, English and Spanish, currently studying Italian and Portuguese. He is a big fan of opera.
Contact: lukasz@subtitler.pl |
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Wojtek Figiel
Graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics. In his MA thesis he described his auteur method of note-taking in consecutive interpreting using a computer with a speech synthesizer. In the doctoral dissertation he explored the community of blind interpreters. He is interested in audio description both as a researcher and a member of the target group.
Wojtek writes and edits texts and works as a translator, interpreter and respeaker (working languages: English and Spanish). He is also a social activist. |
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Gabriela Flis
graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, where she has also undertaken the MA Program in translation and interpreting. For her BA thesis, she joined the team of researchers conducting an eye-tracking study on the dubbing effect. Being a member of the AVT Lab, her main scientific interests concern audiovisual translation and media accessibility. Apart from doing freelance translations and subtitling, she also works with speech recognition and as a respeaker. |
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Valentina Ragni
Is a Research Fellow on the WATCH-ME project at the Institute of Applied Linguistics of the University of Warsaw. She has an MA in Screen Translation from the University of Leeds (UK) and a PhD in Experimental Translation Studies from the same institution, where she investigated the effects of watching reversely subtitled videos on L2 mnemonic retention in advanced L2 Italian learners through an eye-tracking experiment.
Before moving to Poland, she worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol (UK) on a project assessing the impact of productivity-enhancing technologies – such as machine translation and behaviour-tracking tools – on professional translators. She is particularly interested in the cognitive and psycholinguistic aspects of translation, both as a learning tool and as a professional practice.
She is a member of Subtle – The Subtitler’s Association (UK), the UK Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), and the European Society for Translation Studies (EST). |
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Monika Szczygielska
I specialise in legal and practical aspects of accessibility (i.e. media and events accessibility). I am Deputy-Chairman of the Board of Widzialni Foundation – an NGO specializing in websites and live events accessibility, and I co-operate with the Culture without Barriers Foundation.
I am the owner of Dostepni.eu – a team of professional creators specializing in media accessibility, an industry partner of the ILSA project. In 2013, Dostepni.eu was the first in Poland to introduduce live subtitling with respeaking during conferences and cultural events and implement subtitling in live on-line streaming (2014) and TV shows (2017). My company also provides sign language interpreting services for TV broadcasters and Internet. |
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Sonia Szkriba
Sonia is a student at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, a freelance audiovisual translator and SDH subtitler. She is currently working on her MA thesis on senior citizens as secondary users of the AudioMovie application. In her future academic career she plans to further explore the topic of senior citizens as recipients of audiovisual content. |
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Agnieszka Walczak holds a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Warsaw. She graduated with honours, defending the first thesis in Poland on text-to-speech audio description. She has also completed postgraduate studies on audiovisual translation at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Defended at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Agnieszka’s doctoral dissertation focused on the reception of audio description and was produced within the framework of the European project Hybrid Broadcast Broadband for All (HBB4ALL, http://www.hbb4all.eu/). The main area of her research interests concerns audiovisual translation with special focus on audio description for the blind and partially sighted as well as subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.
She is a member of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST), European Society for Translation Studies (EST) and Polish Audiovisual Translators Association (STAW). Professionally works as a translator, audio describer and subtitler.
Contact: agnieszka_walczak@hotmail.com |
Past members
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Gian Maria Greco
NAWA Ulam Fellow at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw (2021-2022). Gian Maria is a researcher and a practitioner working on foundational and applied issues in Accessibility Studies. In 2017-2020, he was an MSCA Individual Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. He held various positions as a post-doc, research fellow, honorary fellow, and visiting scholar. He complements his research expertise with an extensive experience as an accessibility consultant for public institutions and private organisations. Coordinator of the Media Accessibility Platform, he is the scientific director of POIESIS, an NGO specialised in accessibility. He has participated in many research projects, as principal investigator, researcher, or advisor. In 2015-2020, he was accessibility coordinator of the Environmental and Cultural System “Porta d’Oriente” (Italy), one of the most massive projects of cultural accessibility in Europe, and director of its Experimental Centre for Accessibility. Since 2018, he coordinates the UMAQ conference on quality in media accessibility. |
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Magdalena Oziemblewska
is a freelance audiovisual translator, SDH subtitler and researcher. She holds a BA in German with Business Management from Queen Mary University of London.
She’s currently working on her thesis on the quality of templates in subtitling at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. She is planning to pursue her research interests in AVT by conducting a reception study on subtitling using eye tracking.
Interested in theatre and musicals. |
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Tomas Senda
Tomas Senda is a freelance translator and live subtitles’ editor. He graduated from the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw with French and English as his target languages. Being of Lithuanian origin, he’s concerned with minority issues from the linguistic point of view. His main professional interests are media accessibility, live subtitling, multilingualism and non-standard language varieties in translation. |
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Anna Jankowska
Anna Jankowska, PhD, is a Professor at the Department of Translators and Interpreters of University of Antwerp and former Assistant Lecturer in the Chair for Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland). She was a visiting scholar at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona within the Mobility Plus program of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (2016-2019). Her recent research projects include studies on audio description process, mobile accessibility and software.
Anna is the founder and was the first President of the Seventh Sense Foundation, an NGO based in Poland which actively campaigns for access to culture for people with visual and hearing impairments. Member of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation ESIST and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Audiovisual Translation (www.jatjournal.org) – the first academic journal dedicated to audiovisual translation and media accessibility. |
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Joanna Pietrulewicz
The founder of the site, author of subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and audio description. Interested in localization and accessibility in the broad sense of the term. |
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Urszula Leszczyńska
Currently a PhD candidate of the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. Graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. In her BA thesis, she analysed domestication in contemporary Polish dubbing in animated feature films. In her MA thesis, she examined translation of linguistic means of persuasion in subtitles to TED talks. Her PhD research is focused on translation competences acquired and developed by translators-volunteers contributing to the TED Translators initiative. Urszula’s main areas of interest are the phenomenon of volunteering in translation, non-formal education and translation competence development. |
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Renata Mliczak
I am a Teaching Fellow at University College London. In my doctoral dissertation I focused on subtitling for the deaf and the hard of hearing in Poland. Apart from audiovisual translation and accessibility my interests include sign languages, language acquisition and development of reading skills by deaf and hearing children.
I am a member of European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST). |
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Natalia Kiser
Graduate of The Ludwik Solski Theatre Academy in Wroclaw, Puppetry Department, and of the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. A PhD candidate at the University of Warsaw – her research focuses on the simultaneous audio description for live events. Actress, audio describer, translator and interpreter. Her main professional achievement was to perform live audio description for the Carnival Parades in Brasil in 2017. |
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Robert Więckowski
PhD student of Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies at the Cultural Studies Faculty at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS) in Warsaw. Polish philologist, specialist in literature. His research interests include a dialogue of different cultures and Jewish cultural heritage and its perception in Poland. Robert is also interested in audio description, especially its application in museums and art galleries. He works in the Foundation of Culture without Barriers. In his free time he jogs, climbs and plays the guitar. |
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David Orrego Carmona
I am a Lecturer in Translation Studies at Aston University (UK) and an associate research fellow at the University of the Free State (SA). My areas of expertise include audiovisual translation and translation technologies. In particular, my research analyses how translation technologies empower users and how the democratization of technology allows these users to become translators. Other interests include translation process research and the cognitive exploration of translation production and reception, mainly using eye tracking technologies.
I am a member of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST), the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) and the Association for Translation Studies in Africa (ATSA).
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Maria Rubaj
Graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics, the University of Warsaw. She is interested in audiovisual translation, especially audio description and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing. In her MA research project, ‘Audio description In Education’, she explored AD in the education of blind and partially sighted children. |
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Magda Mączyńska
Graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, greatly interested in audiovisual translation, especially text-to-speech audio description. As part of her final project for the audiovisual translation course, she participated in writing text-to-speech audio description with audio subtitling to the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Her current research project is text-to-speech audio description with audio subtitling to a non-fiction film “La Soufrière” by Werner Herzog.
Contact: magdalena.maczynska@gmail.com |
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Irena Michalewicz
For her MA thesis, Irena looked into the role of perspective in audio described films, or the way points of view and spatial arrangement can be rendered in this brief description. Irena showed some ways to render perspective in the AD, as well as their impact when included in the narrative. |
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Jagoda Żbikowska
A graduate of Applied Linguistics whose main field of interest is audiovisual translation, especially subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing. Her research is focused on SDH in multilingual films. |
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Karolina Woicka (née Masłowska)
Graduate of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw. Interested in audio description and subtitling. As a frequent visitor in the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, she devoted her MA thesis to audio description in opera. Her project included the analysis of modern trends in opera accessibility for visually-impaired around the world and writing AD script to “Traviata” in the stage production by M.Treliński. In her free time she travels and bakes. |
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Maria Łogińska
Graduate of the Institute of Applied Linguistics, interested in audiovisual translation, in particular in subtitling (both interlingual subtitling and SDH). Her MA thesis dealt with reading grammar and lexical words in subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.
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Monika Laskowska
Graduate of the MA studies at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. She wrote her thesis on the differences in reception of a foreign-language film when voiced over and subtitled, as part of an international project carried out in cooperation with Università degli Studi di Trieste.
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