Year: 2017

嶋田 健一 Kenichi Shimada

A postdoctoral researcher in pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His work addresses the serious risks of drug-induced organ damage, which can occur when medicines that treat illnesses inadvertently harm organs such as the liver. If undetected, such damage can lead to complete loss of organ function—a condition for which no cure currently exists. Drawing on biology, chemistry, and information science, he investigates diseases caused by these forms of drug toxicity.

Originally from Tokyo, he spent four years in the Netherlands during elementary school due to his father’s work assignment, attending a Japanese school there and thus not acquiring English. After completing his education in Japan through the master’s level, he made a decisive move in 2006 to begin a Ph.D. program at Columbia University in New York. He earned his doctorate with research on anticancer drugs and has been in his current position since 2015.

平松 里英 Rié Hiramatsu

A London-based Japanese–English conference interpreter and university lecturer. After studying abroad, she worked in-house at Japanese subsidiaries of foreign firms in Japan and at Japanese companies in the UK before becoming a freelance interpreter. Her areas of expertise include marketing, telecommunications, media (television, radio, internet), and website translation (transcreation). Drawing on her experience in announcer training, she also enjoys voice-over work. In addition to interpreter training and honing her English skills, she studies French to keep a beginner’s mindset in language learning, and plans to brush up her Spanish next. She holds an MA in International Media Studies from Ulster University (Northern Ireland), a PGDip in Interpreting from London Metropolitan University, and a PGCert in Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language from IIEL. She is currently a regular columnist for Tsūyaku Honyaku WEB, writing the series Interpreter’s Notes from London.