Jan Nishimura

Washington, D.C.

Workshop Topics: Assessment/Feedback/Mentorship, Multicultural Issues

Workshop Titles:
• Mentoring Across Cultures
• Working Towards Cultural Competence

Jan Nishimura (CSC, SC:L, CI, CT, OIC:V/S, OIC:S/V) is a Sansei, third-generation Japanese-American from Chicago, Illinois. She is co-founder and vice President of Sign Language Associates (SLA) of Washington, DC. In the past 25 years, she has served as interpreter, interpreter educator, evaluator, evaluator trainer, diagnostician, consultant, advisor, and mentor. In addition to her work at the local level, Jan has also been a member of RID's Certification council and the Conference of Interpreter Trainers' Board. She has been a Team leader and consultant for the National Multicultural Interpreting Project (NMIP) and has worked recently with the National Council on interpreting (formerly the RID-NAD Task Force on Interpreting). In 1995, she was honored by RID with the Distinguished Service Award. Jan has had many proud moments, not only with establishing the SLA Mentorship Program in 1983, but also seeing the accomplishments of those she has mentored and their influences on her own development.