I live and work as a freelance copyeditor and state-certified translator for the German and English languages in Cologne, Germany. It was a meandering road that led me here. 

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After attending high school in Germany and the USA with a focus on English and Mathematics and having achieved both the Latinum and the Graecum qualifications for Latin and Ancient Greek, respectively, I went on to study American Literature and Culture, Economics, and Philosophy in Bonn, Germany, and Prague, Czech Republic. 

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Having acquired the degree of Magistra Artium, I started working at the Institute of English and American Studies in Hamburg, Germany, where I taught introductory courses on American literature and culture and looked after students working on their first research projects and during their exam periods. In addition,
I held lectures and gave talks, published my own research, and edited German-language and English-language books. I also translated teaching materials for a private university in Hamburg.  

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When I moved to Berlin, Germany, I worked in small, renowned translation firm Samson-Übersetzungen GmbH specializing in legal and financial translations. This firm is one of the best in Germany, as evidenced by the fact that the German Federal Ministry of Justice has commissioned Samson-Übersetzungen with the translation of several federal laws and acts (see AktG, BGB, HGB III, IV, V, UmwG, ZPO). What I learned at Samson-Übersetzungen about precision, clarity, freedom, coherence, and the tension between what is said and what is meant, that is what defines my work to this day. 

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In August of 2020 I successfully completed the state's exam for translators in Berlin with a focus on the legal field, and I am now a state-certified translator for German and English. As of October 2020, I am a court-certified translator authorized to certify the correctness and completeness of a translation (section 142 (3) of the Zivilprozessordnung (ZPO, German Code of Civil Procedure)). 

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Ideally, a translator is always also a copyeditor, and there are times when, at the end of the translation process, there is not only a completed translation but also a source text that has been optimized in an iterative process with the client.