Translation in Transition: Language, Culture and Connection
Bringing together language professionals to shape the future of our profession Oct. 2-4, 2026
Welcome to the
CTTIC 2026 Conference
Oct. 2-4, 2026
The CTTIC 2026 Conference marks a special milestone in the history of Canada’s translation and interpretation profession. Forty-six years after Association of Translators and Interpreters of Saskatchewan (ATIS) took root, we're finally bringing the conference to Regina. Better late than lost in translation!
We'll be gathering at La Cité universitaire francophone in Regina, where ATIS first planted the seeds. We promise plenty of growth, a few strong opinions, and hopefully, no weeds in the terminology garden. Get ready to explore language services in many branches, through workshops, keynote presentations and panels.
Returning to the birthplace of ATIS feels a bit like a family reunion. Except this family debates terminology, punctuation, and the Oxford comma over coffee.
Get ready to plant new ideas, cultivate professional skills, and occasionally prune a few outdated habits. If you're ready to be encouraged, talk shop with fellow word nerds, and explore new language opportunities together, we'd love to welcome you to Regina!
Join us as we come back to ATIS' roots. No gardening experience required. Just a willingness to get your hand dirty with terminology, translation, interpretation, and the occasional thorny issue. Let's not let AI overrun the flowerbeds!
A special highlight this year is the opportunity to network with your peers in a relaxed and fun atmosphere, proving once again that language professionals can socialize where conversations flow freely without editing each other's grammar. Want to join us? Register below!
See you in Regina October 2-4, 2026!
This year's incredible line up of speakers
Pency Tsai
Keynote address:
Find Your Voice, Watch Your Tone: The Subtle Skills of Intonation for Interpreters
Pency Tsai fell into this career as a facilitator of communication by accident, after looking to find herself upon completion of her MBA in Ann Arbour, MI. What started as a side-quest in the corporate world has ended up being a fruitful 2 decade-long gig, one with many ups and downs in between the highs and lows. She is a certified translator and court interpreter who occasionally moonlights as the boss of her own agency, Voiceoyster, where she connects people of different tongues together by giving them a voice so they can understand one another.
Ann Marie Boulanger
Workshop:
Small Words, Big Decisions: The Art of Translating for Children
Ann Marie Boulanger, C. Tr., is a certified
French-to-English translator (member of OTTIAQ), university lecturer, coach and mentor with more than 25 years of experience. She is the owner of Montreal-based Traduction Proteus Inc. and teaches translation at McGill and Concordia
universities. Alongside her specialization in medical and life sciences translation, Ann Marie has built a growing portfolio in children’s and YA
literature, translating everything from picture books and early readers to nonfiction, graphic
novels and young adult fiction for Canadian publishers. Some of her recent translations have received starred reviews from School Library
Journal and appeared on several literary award lists, including the GLLI Translated YA Book Prize, the Prix Albertine Jeunesse and the Forest of
Reading’s Yellow Cedar Award.
Catharine Lailson
Business Development Practical Presentation:
More Than One Way To Translate: How to Pivot to New Income Streams
Masterclass:
Subtitle Success: Your First Steps to Paid Subtitling Projects
Catharine Lailson is a Certified Spanish-to-English Translator, Certified Community Interpreter, ATA Certified Member, and Certified Professional Coach, and currently serves as Vice President of CTTIC. She founded Oasis Language Services in 2017 and later Bilingual Success Academy, a coaching and membership community that helps
freelance translators and interpreters move from feast-or-famine work to predictable income through simple systems. Over 18 years, she has added subtitling, localization, language quality assurance, and linguistic validation
to her own service portfolio, one skill at a time, and now teaches other language professionals to do the same.
Roula Salam
Presentation:
How Ready Are We? Crisis Settings and Languages in Crisis
Roula Salam, PhD, is certified Arabic to English translator and past president of ATIA for two
mandates. She is a lecturer, researcher, and curriculum developer at the University of Alberta, a published literary translator, language rights advocate, proud mom and military wife. She teaches graduate writing and intercultural communication and received the University’s 2026 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award. She is currently Vice President of the International Federation of Translators and Chair of FIT Crisis Settings Standing Committee. Her background in decolonial studies shapes her teaching and research. She is a strong advocate for language equity and Indigenous language/vulnerable language rights.
Segun Afolabi
Presentation:
Translation in transition: How Can Translators’
Professional Associations Salvage University Translation Education in the AGE
of AI?
Segun Afolabi earned PhD in Translation from Université Laval, Québec, Canada; MA in Translation from the University of Lagos, Nigeria;
and BA in French language from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Translation at La
Cité universitaire francophone, University of Regina, Canada. His teaching and research interests cover broadly the training of
professional translators and interpreters, with specific focus on translation pedagogy, theory and history of translation, sociology of translation, translation policy and political translation, CAT tools and machine translation. Actively engaged in professional translation/interpreting practice, he is a Certified Translator and member of the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec (OTTIAQ), as well as the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Saskatchewan (ATIS).
Lucy McMillan
Presentation:
MATLA: Machine Translation Literacy for All Campaign
Lucy McMullan is an undergraduate French and Spanish studies student at the University of Aberdeen. Her research focuses on Machine Translation Literacy and how Machine Translation systems process language. She is set to receive her undergraduate degree in May 2027 and plans to pursue a Master's and a PhD.
Khadijah Folashade Ashiru-Abdulrahman
Presentation:
Evaluating Cultural Accuracy and Translation Equivalence in AI-Powered Hausa Translation: A Cultural Translation and Descriptive Translation
Studies Perspective
Dr. Khadijah Ashiru-Abdulrahman is a scholar of Translation Studies and Linguistics at the University of Abuja, Nigeria. Her research lies at the intersection of translation, artificial intelligence, machine translation, multilingual education, and low-resource African languages, with particular emphasis on cultural accuracy and translation equivalence. She is an author of
scholarly books and articles, including Scopus-indexed research, and advocates inclusive, culturally responsive language technologies that advance the visibility and representation of African languages in the digital age.
Dorothy Akaelu
Presentation:
The Role of Translators and Interpreters in Access to Healthcare by Francophones in Saskatchewan: Current Situation and Prospects
Dorothy Akaelu is a PhD student and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Alberta, Canada. She holds an MA in French and Francophone Intercultural Studies from the University of Regina and has over a decade of experience in language teaching and research. Her research interests include artificial intelligence and machine translation, low-resource African languages, literary translation, decolonial approaches, and digital humanities. Her current doctoral research explores the evaluation of AI-driven machine translation of literary texts in low-resource languages, with particular attention to Igbo and the cultural, linguistic, and ideological dimensions of translation.
Rebecca Guimaraes
Presentation:
Beyond "Sorry": What Nobody Told Me About Canada
Rebecca Guimarães is a Canadian Certified Translator, Brazilian Sworn Translator, and Conference Interpreter based in Toronto. She holds an MA in Conference Interpreting from York University and a BA in Translation from PUC-Rio. She owns Translations R and Selus and serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario (ATIO).
Marcel Kakpo
Presentation in French:
I Have Been Interpreting Since 2006… Yet I Am Still Learning to Interpret
Dr Marcel KAKPO est linguiste-traductologue, expert traducteur-interprète, agréé près les Cours d’appel du Bénin et à la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme. Consultant du Système des Nations
Unies et du Vatican, enseignant universitaire, membre fondateur et 1er Vice-Président de l’ANITEB, Licencié en psychologie et sciences de
l’éducation, il coordonne l’EBeT.
Latifou Salami
Presentation in French:
Regards Croisés Sur la Formation en Traduction et Interprétation au Togo et en France
Latifou Salami est étudiant en Master 2 en Traductologie àl'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle et Stagiare à l'Université de Regina, s'intéresse à l'analyse comparative des formations en Traduction / Interprétation en Afrique.
Eric Poirier
Presentation:
Reinventing Translation Education for the AI Era: What Should We Teach Future Translators?
Éric André Poirier is associate professor of translation and program director in the Department of Modern Languages and Translation at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). He worked as a professional translator—primarily in finance and accounting—for nearly
twenty years. Since 2022, he has served as President of the Canadian Association of Schools of Translation (CAST). He is also a member of
OTTIAQ’s working group on strengthening connections between research and
professional practice, a regular member of UQTR’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (LI2A), and a co‑founding member of ACET’s Laboratoire d'intégration du numérique en enseignement de la traduction (LINET).
Director of UQTR’s undergraduate programs in translation since 2017, he is also the co‑designer
of the graduate-level DESS program in conference interpreting, launched
in fall 2025. He has published numerous articles and scientific reports on translation pedagogy and on standards in specialized professional
translation. He is additionally the author of the textbook Initiation à la traduction professionnelle : Concepts clés.
Éric Poirier developed in Python the PLW algorithm (Precision in Lexical Words) to conduct fine‑grained analysis of segment pairs in parallel corpora. His research focuses primarily on the empirical evaluation of translated texts, as well as on data‑driven translation studies and their applications to the teaching and learning of professional translation.
Key Dates
Event
Date
Registrations open
June 10, 2026
Call for papers open
June 10, 2026
Call for papers close
September 11, 2026
Registrations close
October 2, 2026
Conference
October 2-4, 2026
Our Sponsors
