A surprise showed up yesterday on Facebook when a Friend posted a link to a blog entry from Huffington Post/AOL that was by a writer who works in Lowell, maybe lives in Lowell, and was writing about the remarkable pluralism in the city. Read Nataly Kelly’s post here.

About the blogger:

“Nataly Kelly is Chief Research Officer at Common Sense Advisory, an independent Massachusetts-based market research firm that focuses on global business and language services issues. With a dedicated research team focused exclusively on globalization, localization, internationalization, translation, and interpreting practices, the company’s research helps organizations overcome barriers of border, language, and culture.

“Her book, “Telephone Interpreting: A Comprehensive Guide to the Profession,” is the first full-length book ever published on the topic, and has received praise from industry gurus and academics at leading universities. She has formally studied 7 languages, has traveled to 34 countries, and has obtained higher education on 3 continents.

“A former Fulbright scholar in sociolinguistics, Nataly has published articles on various aspects of Ecuadorian Spanish in academic journals from Colombia and Mexico. She also writes about community interpreting and its impact on the integration of linguistic minorities in highly diverse societies, with a special focus on the role of emerging technologies.

“Nataly is a certified court interpreter (Spanish), has worked as a freelance translator and editor, and is a familiar face on the language industry conference circuit. She has served as an elected member of the board of directors of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care and currently serves on the American Translators Association interpreter certification committee as well as the advocacy committee for the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.

“As a consultant, Nataly has assisted with the design of a language access curriculum for Georgetown University Medical School and presented to health care providers as a member of a national speaker’s bureau for Pfizer’s Quality Forum programs. She has served as an invited speaker on the language industry for the European Commission, and was a member of the National Project Advisory Committee for a web-based training program for culturally and linguistically appropriate disaster response offered through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. “