Past Board Members

As a proponent of clear writing, James introduced a series of lectures on the importance of plain language during his tenure as the director of McGill University’s graduate program in jurilinguistics. This led to his participation in the initial working group that developed the international standard officially adopted by ISO in 2023. His explanation of the plain language movement’s evolution was the object of an extensive interview aired on DGT’s Radio Lingvistika in 2020.

James currently teaches at the University of Turin in the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Cultural Studies after having taught at McGill University for 35 years. He chairs ISO’s international committee on terminology workflows and language coding (TC37 ̸ SC2). A former Vice President of the Association for Business Communication, he is also an honorary life member of the Modern Language Association of America. His research focuses on communications, translation and glottopolitics.

Heloisa is a Brazilian journalist and educator, owner of Comunica Simples consultancy. She became involved with Plain Language in 2016. Before that, she had been an influential communicator in the classical music sector. She wrote the first book in Portuguese on public communication with the plain language perspective. In her Masters in Design, she researched the impact of writing style on the comprehensibility of digital public services.

Heloisa created a method of teaching plain language. A free online course on her method at the National School of Public Administration has attracted more than 20,000 students. She is the co-founder Rede Linguagem Simples Brasil, a network focused on the public sector.

Heloisa lives in Rio and loves listening to music, reading, and going to art events.

Hannah is a freelance editor and English teacher. Originally from the US, she has lived in Italy and the Netherlands and is now based in Germany. She has a bachelor’s degree in History and a master’s degree in Arts Management, both of which have had a research focus on public art.

She has worked in cultural and non-profit organizations, where she honed skills in project management, marketing, and intercultural dynamics. She has been interested in plain language since 2016 when she led a project to simplify accreditation documents for an international education firm. She believes plain language is a powerful tool and should be the standard for engaging the public.

She is a member of ACES: The Society for Editing and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. She has completed rigorous editing training with the Publishing Training Centre.

In her free time, Hannah is active in her local writers’ group, goes for walks in the forest with her dog, and enjoys hunting for antiques in flea markets and thrift stores.

She began as a daily newspaper reporter and editor. When she retired in 2013, she was the press officer for an office of U.S. government scientists working with climate change and other issues.

Through her business, Press Here, Jana continues that work, training scientists to use plain language when talking about their work to non-scientists. She has also trained U.S. government employees to comply with the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

Jana enjoys reading detective fiction from the 1930s to 1960s and traveling with her husband, a cultural anthropologist.

He has presented plain English workshops for hundreds of professionals in legal, corporate, and government organizations ranging from the Commonwealth Bank and Department of Attorney General and Justice to the Parliament of Victoria and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Greg writes crime fiction in between teaching himself acupuncture.

Diane is a plain language editor with Communications Nova Scotia, helping government specialists reach their target audiences with efficient, effective, human-centered documents.

She was involved in Alberta’s work to improve government communications and consumer contracts in the 1980s, and has been a plain language advocate ever since. She served as secretary on the founding board of PLAIN (2008–2010).

Diane dreams of spending a whole summer on a beach.

Marie is an international speaker, author of four books, and educator in a variety of subjects including business communication. She has shared her expertise with clients in private, non-profit and public sector organizations leading numerous program and course development projects. Using her combined experiences, Marie designs and delivers informative, practical workshops tailored to the audience’s needs.

Marie has direct adult education training with her certificates in Teaching English as a Second Language, Workshop Facilitation, and Adult Education. Presently, Marie is the Manitoba Chapter Chair for the Institute for Performance and Learning. Also, she is a Certified Training and Development Professional.

Marie enjoys music, art and books. She also enjoys spending time outside with her family.

Sylviane launched her knowledge translation/transfer and research communications business in 2003, after working at McGill University and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Most of her clients are academics to whom plain language does not come naturally.

She once heard renowned Ontario Justice Horace Krever say that nobody had ever asked him to make legal text more complicated. That lesson stuck. Since that day, she has made a special effort to ensure all of her work is in plain language, and trains others to achieve that goal.

Vera has worked in different fields and environments, from NGOs through multinational companies to startups.

They have experience in software testing, project management, organizing events, and technical writing, with a Masters in Economics.

In 2014 they embarked on the ambitious task of introducing plain language in Hungary. Since then, they have worked as a freelancer, offering plain language editing and training to companies. They partnered up with a news portal, and launched a plain language award. Vera also wrote a comprehensive guide on how to write clearly in Hungarian.

They loves bouldering and reading science-fiction. They dream of a world where the right to understand is a universal right.

Anki is a certified plain language consultant with an examina from Stockholm University. She started her plain language expert career at the Swedish Migration Board 15 years ago. Since then she has started, and still runs, a successful plain language agency and has worked on legal texts at the Swedish Government Offices.

She also co-wrote the bestselling book Juristens skrivhandbok. The democratic potential of officialese and legalese, or rather the un-democratic potential of the two, fascinates her. She has therefore stayed on their track: putting democracy and human rights on the plain language agenda.

Anki believes plain language should be put to work to promote democratic values and human rights everywhere. Language is a powerful tool, and she believes that we should use it to make the world a better place.

In her free time Anki enjoys taking care of her family’s 19th century cottage and catching up on her reading.

Claire is at the forefront of Ireland’s campaign for clear communications. She is responsible for running the Plain English Editing and Training Service of the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA).

Claire started a petition on behalf of NALA, calling on the Irish Government and its agencies to provide information in plain English. This petition is receiving significant coverage in the Irish national media.

Claire launched Ireland’s first ever Plain English Awards. Claire was the conference coordinator for PLAIN’s 2015 conference in Dublin, Ireland, and continues to work on PLAIN’s conference committee.

Claire dreams of living in a penthouse in New York.

Kate has advocated for plain language for more than 20 years. She continues to do so with consulting and training services, in person and virtually through the PlainLanguageAcademy.com.

Kate is a co-founder, along with Cheryl Stephens, of PLAIN’s original organization and International Plain Language Day October 13, iplainday.org. She has co-organized, spoken at and supported PLAIN conferences since they began. Her motivation and commitment to spreading the word about clear communication reaches out globally through social media, event organizing and public speaking.

Kate’s clients come from all sectors in Canada, the UK and the EU. Plain language training is woven into every project. She loves seeing clients’ excitement when they put new skills to practice and their sense of accomplishment when successfully completing a plain language project.

Kate takes her plain language suitcase with her everywhere. She currently resides in a Rocky Mountain ski town in British Columbia. Although she doesn’t ski, she loves the energy alpine communities generate. She does hike, bike, kayak and snowshoe. But Kate’s current passion is getting on with writing novels.

Christine, founder at Clearspace in New Zealand, is a writer and plain language practitioner with more than 20 years’ experience in creative and business communications.

Christine advocates for plain language with the country’s political and business leaders. She has helped many organisations to develop a culture of clear, consistent, and on-brand communications.

One of her favourite things to do is to walk in New Zealand’s native forests and listen to the birds sing.

Claudia has been a member of PLAIN since 2010 and adviser for the Plain Language Committee for the Chilean judicial system. She is a plain language consultant for several government bodies and the co-founder of the Plain Language Network, Chile.

Claudia wants to support PLAIN´s objectives and its growth around the world. Her job and publications include plain legal language projects in the judicial and parliament field and constructing plain language standards in Spanish and other languages.

She holds a PhD in Spanish Philology from Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain. She is professor and head of Communications and Professional Abilities department of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso in Chile.

Miguel Martinho was a managing partner at Claro, the training and consultancy firm that introduced plain language to Portugal and has been helping Portuguese companies and government agencies communicate clearly since 2007.

Miguel has developed and carried out simplification projects with corporate and public clients alike.

Miguel has a background in Law and worked as a legal adviser to the Portuguese National Ombudsman, which showed him the importance of plain language and led him to join Sandra Fisher-Martins in her quest for the right to understand.”

Bede is a technical communication, information design and information management professional with 20 years’ experience. He is currently Senior Content Officer in the work health and safety function of a government infrastructure development agency.

Bede is bringing plain language to safety documentation – a long overdue task.
Bede has been president of the Australian Society for Technical Communication and was involved in certification for technical communicators and forming the national organization. He has extensive experience in the business of communication and in managing a volunteer-resourced organisation.

Bede joined PLAIN’s Professional Development Committee in 2016. He is committed to progressing PLAIN’s professional development agenda, in particular establishing professional certification for plain-language practitioners.

In his spare time Bede enjoys playing music and doing cryptic crosswords.

Dominiek is a plain language editor and trainer with over 20 years of experience. He works as a head of client communication at a global financial services company. Dominiek also shares his experience via speeches and training with one goal: showing that plain language benefits both the reader and the writer in every sector, and across all types of communication.

Dominiek is fascinated about how the value of plain language goes far beyond language: strengthening brands and making relationships with clients and citizens more level, open and honest. And likewise, the impact of non-plain language on relations.

Dominiek enjoys bike rides with his wife and friends, and has a keen interest in art deco.

Melinda Melcher is the CEO of simpletext GmbH, a company she founded in 2016 providing plain language consultancy and project execution. Before that, Melinda managed a technical communication agency. She studied marketing and business, IT, social sciences and holds various executive certificates such as “Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy” from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Melinda also works at using plain language principles in the field of machine learning (automated translation) and UX (user experience).

During the last ten years she led various communication projects. Recently, she successfully finalized a pioneer project in Switzerland called “city for all”. This included implementing an overall plain language concept, training writers and rewriting a huge amount of existing web texts. The project also gained substantial local media coverage. Melinda is not only promoting plain language in Europe and Switzerland to help governments, non-governmental organizations and firms to appreciate the benefits of plain language, she also fosters peer-to-peer engagement.

Melinda loves her cats Mimiko and Casionrani, her Turkish partner and spending time outdoors. She also enjoys painting, her creative writing workshops, plain language conferences, and is looking forward to meeting like-minded plain language enthusiasts online or locally.

Ingrid is a plain language consultant with a degree from Stockholm University. Since 2012 she has worked at the Language Council of Sweden as one of two language advisors responsible for the Swedish plain language work. Before that, she was a plain language advisor at the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority.

Ingrid is also president of Samspråk, the official organization for plain language practitioners of Swedish public authorities.

Ingrid loves her grandkids and spending time outdoors. She also loves social media and plain language conferences, and hopes to meet you there!

Romina is a plain language expert, translator, and writer with over 20 years of experience in medical localization and health literacy.

Her firm, Plainlii, provides language services to diverse organizations, including Fortune 500 companies. Within Plainlii, she provides training to professionals worldwide, as Language Compass. She is also part of Plain Language Academy, where she teaches writing strategies and health literacy and will also be launching Academy in Spanish (Academia de Language Claro) in 2021. As an educator, Romina designed the Master of Arts in Translation/Localization Management at Middlebury Institute of International Studies and has taught translation and translation technology courses.

She has been a leader and active member in other professional associations, including ATA (American Translators Association) and SEA (Spanish Editors Association). She works on language standards development at ASTM and ISO and was a 2020 English and Spanish judge for the ClearMark Awards sponsored by the Center for Plain Language. Romina is finishing a book about writing strategies and would love to hear from writers and readers about examples and topics of interest.

On a personal note, Romina is a mom of 3 and enjoys trying local foods and dancing wherever she goes!

Irene is an enthusiastic proponent of plain language and a long-standing member of the Professional Editors’ Guild in South Africa. She works as a senior editor at Alexander Forbes Financial Services in Johannesburg.

Passionate about shaping clear communication in financial services, she presented Decluttering Communication: Plain Speaking, Plain Writing in 2017 and hosted What’s Trending in Plain Language? in 2018.

She enjoys being part of a creative team of writers and designers to make the ‘complicated simple, awesomely simple’ (Charles Mingus). She’s keen for South Africa to host a PLAIN conference.

Favorite activities are cycle commuting, hiking and camping. She dreams of cycling around the world.

Natalia is a freelance legal translator. She was born and raised in Buenos Aires and is now based in The Netherlands.

She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Legal Translation and a Master’s Degree in Translation. She speaks English, Spanish, French and Dutch.

She became interested in clear communication in 2017 when she wrote her Master’s thesis on translation, plain language and privacy policies. She believes clear communication means empathy, empowerment, inclusion and accessibility. One of her goals as Board Member is to contribute to the development of plain language in Spanish-speaking countries.

Natalia’s a big fan of music. In her free time, you will find her in a record store or at a concert.