Jaime Fatás-Cabeza is an Associate Professor of Practice in Translation and Interpreting in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona. He is also a United States Court Certified Interpreter (English/Spanish) and a healthcare interpreter.
Jaime earned a Master of Musical Arts from The Boston Conservatory–Berklee College of Music and is currently pursuing a PhD in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Alicante, Spain.
In 2006, he launched the University of Arizona’s undergraduate degree program in healthcare and legal translation and interpreting, which he directed for sixteen years. His work in program development emphasizes community translation, service learning, and equitable language access in public service settings.
He has taught at Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts–Boston, and Boston University, and has held positions as staff translator and editor for major publishing houses, as operations supervisor of Interpreting Services at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as a staff judicial interpreter with the Trial Court of Massachusetts, and official translator and interpreter for Spanish and Mexican consular offices.
Jaime has designed translation and interpreting curricula for higher education, government, and healthcare organizations, and has published widely. His translations include The Study of Orchestration by S. Adler, Seeking Safety by L. Najavits, Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest by D. Carrasco and S. Sessions, the Ayotzinapa Report (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights), and Spanish Culture Behind Barbed Wire by F. Cate-Arries. He contributed to the second edition of Fundamentals of Court Interpretation: Theory, Policy and Practice, by R. Dueñas-Gonzalez and H. Mikkelson.
Recent published translations include Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940–2015 / Españoles en Mauthausen. Representaciones de un campo de concentración nazi (1940–2018) and Fashioning Spanish Cinema / El cine español y la moda. As an author, his recent publications include the book chapter Deterrence Through Lack of Linguistic Access Within the U.S. Immigration System (coauthored), and the articles Medical Spanish Standardization in U.S. Medical Schools: Consensus Statement From a Multidisciplinary Expert Panel (coauthored); Developing Theoretical and Practical Competence in Translation and Interpreting Revision / Desarrollo de la pericia teórica y práctica para la revisión de traducciones e interpretaciones; Improving Cross-Cultural and Linguistic Services in Healthcare Settings / Mejora de los servicios interculturales y lingüísticos en ámbitos de atención médica; Let’s Seize the Opportunities for Language Access Long Denied; Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act: Updates in 2024; and Remote Interpreting Modalities in Health Care Settings.
Jaime serves on the editorial board of Access, the journal of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care, and has been a member of its Trainer of Trainers Workgroup since 2012. He maintains an active practice in legal and healthcare interpreting and consults as an expert witness in legal proceedings.
His current research projects explore the role of the expert translator in U.S. courts and the ethical and pedagogical implications of AI technologies in translation and interpreting.