Prof. Lorraine Leeson

Lorraine Leeson is Professor in Deaf Studies at the Centre for Deaf Studies, School of Linguistics, Speech and Communication Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. She is a member of the Register of Irish Sign Language Interpreters with extensive legal interpreting experience and she has also served as an expert witness in many cases. Lorraine has published widely on aspects of the linguistics and applied linguistics of sign languages and in the field of interpreting studies, including in the area of legal interpreting. She has been PI on a number of projects that include consideration of aspects of legal interpreting including Justisigns (police interpreting) and Justisigns 2 (gender based violence) (both Erasmus + projects) and co PI on the Royal Society of Edinburgh/Royal Irish Academy funded Silent Harm project (delivery of training to police and GBV related service providers regarding working with interpreters). Lorraine was named a European Commission Language Ambassador in 2009, is a Council of Europe/ European Centre for Modern Languages expert on sign languages, and in 2014, she was conferred with honorary membership of the Irish Translators and Interpreters Association.