Staff and company background
- Medical translation, proofreading and editing
All work is done by a group of well over 400 native speakers of the target language, with
combined medical and translation educational background and very extensive experience in translating
and editing medical texts. They live and work in their own language area: close to medical
information resources, reference materials and the latest terminology, and in the market where
the translated product will have to perform.
- Project management
All work is centrally prepared, coordinated and managed by our international, multilingual team
of project managers.
- Linguistic technology
Where applicable, we use translation memory software, allowing us to 'recycle' previously
translated phrases, which reduces cost and increases consistency across related documents.
- Page formatting (DTP)
If required, we can provide page layout services, using the most common DTP-programs.
Company background
MediLingua was established in 1996 by Simon Andriesen. He holds a masters degree in history
from the University of Leiden, and worked at the Amsterdam bureau of the Associated Press (AP) before co-founding INK International,
the first software localization firm in Europe, in 1980. After selling INK to an American group
in 1992 he lived in the USA for some time to support the integration. In 1995 he returned to the Netherlands to set up MediLingua. He is involved in the series of Localization World translation conferences, where he serves as member of the Advisory Board for the sessions related to medical translations during the preconference day. He is also member of the Board of Directors of Translators Without Borders (TWB) (Traducteurs Sans Frontières), an organization that facilitates the work volunteer translators provide to organizations such as Doctors Without Borders. In this Board he represents the Operation Committee, which he chairs. Is married and has one daughter. Speaks English, Dutch, German and a bit of French.
E-mail: simon.andriesen@medilingua.com
Project management team
Mary Weller
Born and raised in the USA, she came over to the Netherlands as an exchange student in the
early 90s, and simply never returned. After several positions in an international publishing
house, she became project manager at the software localization company WordHouse in Amsterdam.
She joined MediLingua in 1998. She is married and has two daughters. She speaks Dutch without
a trace of a foreign accent, and English, with a heavy American accent.
E-mail: mary.weller@medilingua.com
Annemarie Oeverhaus
Annemarie has a degree in translation studies at the University of Amsterdam
and joined software localization firm INK in 1984. She held positions as translator,
editor, project manager, and office manager there, until she took a break in the early 90s.
She had two sons and joined MediLingua in 1998. She is bilingual in Dutch and English, and
speaks Spanish, French, and German.
E-mail: annemarie.oeverhaus@medilingua.com
Simone Gankema
Simone joined mediLingua in April 2000, and is our all-round adminitrator. She takes care of bookkeeping, financial administration and payroll administration. She worked at an international bank, got 3 sons, and by the time the last one went to primary school she joined us.
E-mail: simone.gankema@medilingua.com
Justin Tapper
Born in England, but he has lived in France and Belgium as well. He was a technical writer
at the interbank organization SWIFT, moved to the Netherlands in the late 90s, joined software
localization firm LionBridge Technologies as a project manager, got married, had two sons, and
joined MediLingua in 2000. He speaks English with a heavy British accent, a bit of Dutch
with a heavy British accent, and has a good command of French, be it with a heavy British accent.
E-mail: justin.tapper@medilingua.com
Agnita Zwirs
Agnita joined MediLingua in September 2001 after a career at Excerpta Medica Medical
Communications (a Reed-Elsevier Company) where she managed the editorial department. She
studied English, French and Spanish at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, is a sworn translator
of English, and lived in London for two years. She is married and has two daughters. She speaks
Dutch, English, French, Spanish, and German.
E-mail: agnita.zwirs@medilingua.com
Carola van de Meerendonk
Carola joined MediLingua in November 2001 after a decade of having been responsible for all
production aspects of the weekly publication of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde
(the Dutch Journal of Medicine). She studied Arabic, Hebrew and general linguistics at the
University of Leiden. She is married and has one daughter. She speaks Dutch, English and
German, and reads Arabic and Hebrew.
E-mail: carola.van.de.meerendonk@medilingua.com
Joyce Couwenberg
Joyce joined MediLingua in September 2004 after completing her studies Biomedical Sciences and Journalism and New Media at the University of Leiden. She manages many different pharmaceutical and healthcare projects and has coordinated the English translation of a large medical dictionary. She has one son and speaks Dutch and English.
E-mail: joyce.couwenberg@medilingua.com
Harriet van Heusden
Harriet joined MediLingua in January 2006 as coordinator/interviewer at the (then) newly established readability test department, and also works as editor for drug registration texts. She studied English at the University of Leiden and worked as freelance medical translator and editor. She was involved in a number of clinical trials in several hospitals in The Netherlands. Is married, has one daughter and speaks English and Dutch.
E-mail: harriet.van.heusden@medilingua.com
Suzanne Kramer
Suzanne joined MediLingua in July 2006 to help us through the busy Summer period and we just didn't let her go. She studied marine biology in the USA and English in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch and English.
E-mail: suzanne.kramer@medilingua.com
Michelle Wallé
Michelle joined MediLingua in June 2007 to help us through the busy Summer period and, like in the case of Suzanne, we just didn't let her go and trained her to become project manager. She studied English at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch and English fluently. Since
E-mail: michelle.walle@medilingua.com
Petra Hollak
Petra joined MediLingua in October 2009 as editor for medicinal registration texts. She came from the International Aids Therapy Evaluation Center (IATEC) in Amsterdam and worked as a medical translator since 1992. She studied English at the University of Amsterdam and lived in the USA for a number of years. Speaks Dutch, English and Spanish.
E-mail: petra.hollak@medilingua.com
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