Experience & qualifications

Freelance editor/translator/language teacher

September 2022 – present

Asymptote
(an online journal of world literature in translation)

March 2021 – present

Assistant Managing Editor (for issue production)

• Duties include training and supervision of team in the copy editing of the pieces for each quarterly issue.

Oxford University Press, Oxford

October 1994 – September 2022

Senior Editor

2020–2021:

• Edited various components of coursebooks for students of English as a foreign language (EFL).

2013–2020:

• Edited several works of EFL grammar, including the fourth edition of Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage; the second edition of the vocabulary-building series Oxford Word Skills by Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman, and Oxford Grammar 360° for Italian secondary students.

1994–2013:

• Edited bilingualisations of EFL dictionaries for Polish, Czech, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, Turkish and Arab learners of English.
• Monolingual lexicographic work, including Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English.
• Responsibilities included: recruitment, training and ongoing supervision of freelance translators and editors.
• Liaison over data capture, design, typesetting, and creation of CD and digital components.

St. Michael’s Primary School, Oxford

May 2009 – July 2013

St. Francis’ Primary School, Oxford

• Teacher of English as an Additional Language

November 2008 – January 2009

Progress Publishing Group, Moscow

September 1992 – August 1994

• Translator from Russian into English
• Style editor (improving English translations done by native Russian-speakers).

Maria Language School, Moscow

April 1993 – August 1994

International House, Moscow

September 1992 – May, 1993

London School of Modern Languages, Prague

• Teacher of English as a Foreign Language

March 1991 – July 1992

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs (later, and Trade)

February 1985 – November 1990

Third/Second Secretary in Australian Embassy, Warsaw

• Political liaison and reporting
• Maintaining cultural contacts with Poland and Czechoslovakia

Desk officer in Canberra

• Disarmament and Multilateral Section
• East Europe Section
• Human Rights Section

3MBS-FM, Melbourne

1983–1984

Voluntary work for a classical music community radio station

• Programming, research, presenting, writing articles for station magazine.

Freelance editor/translator/language teacher

September 2022 – present

• Translation (involving Russian and Polish), including for the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, London.
• Editorial freelance work, in particular editing/proofreading dissertations for non-native English-speakers.
• Volunteer for Aid Brigade at refugee camp in Sarajevo (2019).

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

• The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel

September 1995 – June 1996

Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski (Catholic University of Lublin), Poland

• Diploma in Polish Language and Culture

College of TEFL, Sydney, Australia

August–September 1990

• Royal Society of Arts Certificate for Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults 

University of Melbourne, Australia

• Bachelor of Arts (Combined Honours) in Russian and French, with minors in European History and Music History

(in descending order of fluency)

Polish, Russian, French, German, Czech

classical music (I sing – in various languages – and play the cello and piano); cinema, theatre, literature; human rights activism

The clear and helpful advice Janet gave our choir on the pronunciation of the words to Rachmaninov's Bogoroditse Devo meant we gained confidence and a uniformity of sound and could then put our main efforts into the piece's musical expression.

Chris Emlyn-Jones, bass, Byrd Chorus (for concert given in St Peter's Church, Wolvercote, Oxford)