A childhood spent among Greek, Turkish, and Jewish neighbors can turn language into a way of being. That spirit runs through a candid, wide‑ranging conversation with conference interpreter, researcher, and choir singer Dr. Ozum Arzik Erzurumlu, whose path stretches from lyric notebooks and full‑immersion schooling to live broadcasts of U.S. presidents. We open the booth door on the realities of crisis coverage, the relay chains that kept news flowing during the Arab Spring, and the home‑built audio hacks that made phone interpreting viable when seconds mattered. We dig into the engine room of performance: preparation that goes beyond collecting terms to truly owning them, learning a speaker’s discourse so style carries meaning, and the post‑assignment review that separates solid from exceptional. Dr. Arzik Erzurumlu shares evidence‑based ways to protect the person behind the mic—growth mindset, positive psychology, pre‑briefs, and rituals that help interpreters shed vicarious trauma after war speeches and emotionally charged testimonies. The message is practical and humane: accuracy and well‑being can coexist, if we plan for both. Then we follow Alice down the rabbit hole into remote platforms and AI. Drawing on interviews with 26 freelancers, Dr. Arzik Erzurumlu maps what changed when booths became browsers: the gains in reach for those who were proactive, the loss of room intelligence and human touch, and the surprising habits interpreters wanted to keep. We tackle “tech without panic,” showing how tools like ChatGPT and Notebook LM can accelerate prep while the irreplaceably human skills—reading the room, catching irony, matching tone—remain the profession’s edge. We also challenge the myth of invisibility: stay neutral on the mic, but step forward outside it to explain your value, ethics, and craft. If you care about where interpreting is headed—reputation over rush, visibility without bias, and smart use of technology—this conversation offers both a compass and a toolkit. Listen, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more practitioners can find it. Subscribe for more deep dives into the craft and evolution of interpreting. Ozum Arzik-Erzurumlu, PhD, is a full-time faculty member in the Program in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research spans multiple dimensions of interpreting, including conference interpreting, the sociology of interpreting, interpreting technology, interpreter training, and the history of interpreting. Her work has been published in several leading journals, including Translation and Interpreting Studies and Interpreting. A professional conference interpreter, she works with Turkish (A), English (B), and Spanish (C) and has interpreted for U.S. presidents on behalf of various Turkish broadcasters since 2006. She is an active member of the Turkish Conference Interpreters’ Association, a researcher with the GenTech international research network, and a board member of Encounters in Translation. NEW BOOK: Reimagining Conference Interpreting in the Age of AI (Routledge, 2026) will be out on May 27, 2026! https://www.linkedin.com/feed/ Share your thoughts about this episode! Support the show Thanks for tuning in, till next time! 👋 Connect with Mireya Pérez, Host www.brandtheinterpreter.com Facebook LinkedIn Instagram
