David Morales, CCI
President
David Morales has been a freelance Spanish-English translator and Interpreter for more than 24 years. Born in Mexico City to Mexican and American parents, he received a fully bilingual education. He has been a resident of Nashville since 2000. David is a TN Certified Court Interpreter and has completed the Kaiser Permanente 44-hour Medical Interpreter Training. He currently works as the Language Services Coordinator for the Davidson County/Nashville Juvenile Court. He is also an active local community and immigrant advocate. He sat on the Property Standards and Appeals Board of the Metropolitan Nashville government, and on the Board of Directors of The Housing Fund and of the Nashville Neighborhood Alliance. David studied cello at the National Conservatory of Mexico and ethnomusicology at the National School of Music of Mexico. He served on the board of directors of TAPIT previously as President-Elect from 2014 to 2016 and as President from 2016 to 2018.
Contact: president@tapit.org
Matthew Benton
Secretary
Matthew Benton was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in Philosophy and Spanish in 2007. He then moved to Chile, where he worked as an English teacher in some of the most prestigious educational institutions in the country. After seven years in South America, he returned to Tennessee, where he has been working as an interpreter ever since. He is certified in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri and recently passed the written component of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination. He currently resides in Memphis and enjoys running, cycling, and discovering new food and music.
Contact: secretary@tapit.org
Bruni Treviño Dopatka, MA, BA
Member at Large
Bruni Treviño Dopatka has been a certified court interpreter in Tennessee and a member of TAPIT since 2004. She is a medical interpreter certified by CHI. She interprets in Spanish and French. Bruni holds a Bachelor of Arts in French and Master of Arts in German from the University of Wisconsin. She trained as a systems analyst in Germany. She has presented several times at TAPIT. Bruni has been trained as a mediator by the Community Mediation Center. Bruni loves her work. She also enjoys her children and grandchildren. In her free time, she hikes and plays the piano.
Marcela Pinilla
Member at Large
Marcela is a singer/songwriter/interpreter from Colombia. Her passion for music and languages was shown at a very young age. she began touring internationally while she was still a teenager and while on the road she had the opportunity of learning English as well as Mandarin and a bit of Maley and Portuguese. She performed in well known festivals and venues around the world before moving to the US. She arrived in Memphis where she release her first record and immediately became part of the music community. Her community involvement led to the Shelby County Mayor, Mark Luttrell, officially proclaiming October 13, 2012 as "A Day to Celebrate the Life of Marcela Pinilla." The following year, the Colombian singer also received the Ruby Wharton Award for Youth & Delinquency from Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton, as well as being named the Latin Voice of Memphis by La Prensa Latina. In 2013 Marcela released her album Passion including collaborations with world-renowned Grammy award winning musicians; saxophonist Kirk Whalum and bassist Victor Wooten. While in Memphis she discovered her love for helping the community and that's when she started working as an interpreter in order to help other musicians have access to information and resources, this lead to Pinilla working with the Memphis Music Foundation and the Community Legal Center and later discovering her passion for medical interpreting while in Nashville. She graduated from the interpreters program at the University of Hawaii and has two certifications as a conference interpreter as well as a certification as a medical interpreter (CMI). She works as a contractor for the Tennessee Language Center for several years and worked as a medical interpreter for Vanderbilt Medical Center as well as working as a conference interpreter for national organizations. Currently Marcela calls Nashville home where she continues a career as a musician performing regularly in and out of town,working as a teaching artist for the Disney Musicals in Schools program with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, while interpreting and being very involved with the community.
Heidi Giordano
Treasurer
Heidi is a bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking
interpreter. She was born and raised in Southern California. Mrs. Giordano moved to Tennessee in
April of 2015 with her husband and 2 kids and, now with their beautiful addition
baby girl, are a family of 5.
She attended Northridge Institute of Interpretation and completed an interpreter
readiness course. In September of 2016 she became a registered interpreter with
the State of Tennessee and is currently on the path to become certified. When she
decided to pursue this career of interpreting she was living in California working full-
time as a manager, not knowing that she would fulfill this dream of hers in
Tennessee.
Contact: treasurer@tapit.org
Heba Abouelasaad
Member at Large
Hebba Abulsaad has been a freelance interpreter, translator, lecturer, and program manager for more than 25 years. Her interpretation and translation experience began overseas, and she spent two decades serving as a client liaison for businesses, both independent and corporate.In the USA, Hebba has been practicing Arabic >< English legal, medical, and community interpreting in all modalities (in person, over-the-phone, and video remote interpreting) as well as performing Arabic >< English translations for more than 10 years. She is an Arabic Certified Court Interpreter in Five States, as well as a national Arabic Certified Healthcare Interpreter. She is also a Certified Credentialed Interpreter by the American Translators’ Association (ATA), and an Associate Member of ATA and its divisions.
Eleazar Jiménez
Member at Large
Marvyn Bacigalupo-Tipps, Ph.D.
President Emeritus
Originally from New Jersey, Marvyn settled in Nashville some thirty years ago, initially to teach at Vanderbilt University and subsequently at other local colleges. Later, she was a partner in a successful translation company, became an editor of two trade journals in Spanish, and now works as a freelance ATA Certified Translator of Spanish and as a Certified Court Interpreter in the Federal Courts, and Kentucky and Tennessee State Courts. Marvyn served as President of TAPIT for 3 years, an organization she co-founded in 2002. She is now President-Emeritus.