Cynthia Roat Biography

Cynthia E. Roat is a trainer of community interpreters and an international consultant on language access in health care. Certified as a medical and social-service English-Spanish interpreter, she provided interpreting services in a wide range of community settings in the early 1990s, before her interest in systems change led her into training interpreters, instructors, medical providers and healthcare administrators. Over the past three decades, Ms. Roat has made significant contributions, both in the U.S. and abroad, in many areas of language access. She is the author of a wide array of key resources in the field and the primary developer of a number of basic courses for healthcare interpreters. Her most recent book, Healthcare Interpreting in Small Bites, is being adopted as an ancillary text in many training programs. Ms. Roat has also consulted for a variety of large medical centers and healthcare systems. Always concerned about building grassroots capacity, Ms. Roat has been a mentor to interpreters, trainers and Language Access Coordinators around the U.S. She is a founding member of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), where she currently serves on the Board, a founding member of the Washington State Coalition on Language Access (WASCLA), and a former board member of the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS) where she built a statewide network for providing high quality, low cost continuing education for community interpreters. She is known nationally as an engaging speaker, a knowledgeable resource, and an energetic advocate for language access in general.