Degrees

Ecole Polytechnique (graduated 1965)

PhD (mathematics) 1969

Master in Business Administration – 1979

About me

My parents were both German teachers, and my father was born in Germany. Both my parents insisted that their children speak German as fluently as they would French. Thus I always had German as a mother tongue, and kept using it, professionnally and otherwise. I acquired an in-depth knowledge of English while working abroad, in particular during a four year stay in the US, where I also attended evening classes and earned an MBA.

My professionnal background is initially in science. After graduating from the Ecole Polytechnique, I joined the CNRS and subsequently the Department of Education / University. I hold a PhD in Astronomy and spent ten years in Research. After several years with the Department of Foreign Affairs in the US (that's when I got my MBA) I returned to France to work for a major international company specializing in professional electronics. My responsibilities where mostly centered around Information Technology and Telecommunications, including running in-house company-wide services. I was involved in all aspects, from purchasing hardware, software and bespoke services to applications design as well as technology sourcing and deployment. More recently, I took part in preparing RFPs as well as proposals and bids in both telecommunications and IT/MIS for domestic and foreign government bodies. In the course of my career, I always practiced English – early on, the company had deemed it appropriate to establish English internally as official business language -, and sometimes German as well, as my duties involved travelling extensively abroad.

Experience as linguist :
Over the past two years, I have translated or proof read extensively ( ~ 200 000 words) in both language pairs (German to French and English to French) texts covering a broad range of subjects, including food industry, health care, IT, wood industry, housing and urban development, etc.

Now that I am retired, I have chosen to turn my interest in both languages and cultures, German and English, into a professional activity the challenges and versatility of which I truly enjoy.