María Rico Vázquez is a PhD student of the Programme in Communication at the Universidade de Vigo (Galicia, Spain), and her research focuses on intralingual respeaking in Spain. She holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting (2013-2017) and a Master’s degree in Multimedia Translation (2017-2018), both from the aforementioned university.
Her studies have allowed her to work as part of the UVigo team for ILSA (Interlingual Live Subtitling for Access), a European Union funded project focused on interlingual respeaking. Its main objectives are identifying the skills and profile of the interlingual live subtitler; developing, testing and validating the first training course on interlingual live subtitling; and
providing a protocol for the implementation of this discipline in three real-life scenarios, namely TV, political/social settings and the classroom. Coordinated by the Universidade de Vigo and supported by several European universities and other stakeholders from all over the world, ILSA stands nowadays as a key element not only in the field of translation and interpreting, but also in the field of accessibility. Thus, working in such a heterogeneous environment with an interdisciplinary working group, she is able to combine her interest and passion for languages, Audiovisual Translation and Media Accesibility. María has received two Academic Excellence awards, one granted by the Universidade de Vigo and the other one by the Galician Government (Xunta de Galicia). Moreover, she has previous experience in teaching English as a foreign language both for children and adults.