CCHI is honored to welcome two new Commissioners to start their three-year term on our Board this month: E. Zoe Schutzman and Vonessa Costa.
E. Zoe Schutzman grew up in Seville (Spain) and moved to Connecticut where she completed her BA in East Asian Studies and Architectural Design at Wesleyan University. She received her MA in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate School and pursued Translation and Interpretation Studies at Hunter College (in New York). Thereafter, she became a NYS Certified Spanish Court Interpreter and a Nationally Certified Healthcare Interpreter (CHI™). She is a licensed trainer for The Community Interpreter International (TCII), Medical Terminology for Interpreters (MT), Interpreting for Pediatric Genetics (IPG), and The Interpreter Trainer Online (ITO). Zoe is Co-founder and CEO at Cloud 18 Productions Inc., an international technology-driven creative enterprise. Since joining the University of New Mexico Hospitals (UNMH) (Albuquerque, NM), Zoe has elevated training and competency assessment standards for staff and dual role medical interpreters alike. She has mentored interpreters (ASL, Arabic, Farsi/Dari, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Navajo, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese, etc.) and propelled new avenues for professional development. Furthermore, she has cultivated system-wide regulatory adherence, process improvement, and partnerships with key institutional and community stakeholders. Prior to UNMH, Zoe worked for four fruitful years alongside Javier González at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Immigrant Health & Cancer Disparities Service (IHCD).
Vonessa Costa is director of Multicultural Affairs and Patient Services at Cambridge Health Alliance, named “Best in Class for Delivering Culturally and Linguistically Competent Patient Care throughout the Organization” by the Institute for Diversity in Health Management (2010). Vonessa co-leads CHA’s language access initiatives and one of the largest hospital-based interpreter programs in New England, honored with a 2014 Amerinet Healthcare Achievement Award for technological advances that have enhanced institutional capacity to care for a diverse patient population that is 43% limited English proficient. Prior to her current position, Vonessa was director of the Cross Cultural Communication Institute at CCCS, Inc., where she specialized in interpreter education and provider training in intercultural communication. Vonessa is a CoreCHI™ practitioner credentialed by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters. She is secretary of the Forum on the Coordination of Interpreter Services (FOCIS) and a member of the America’s Essential Hospitals Education Committee. Vonessa is a graduate of the America’s Essential Hospitals Fellows Program, and a 2019 MassAHEC Tony Windsor Award recipient for advocacy in language access and the professionalization of healthcare interpreters.