THE RICARTI GROUP assigns dedicated project coordinators and interpreting coaches to each training cohort.
Our Coaches
Rita Nancy Weil
Ph.D., HUB-CMI
Tina Peña
M.Ed.
Álvaro Vergara-Mery
Ph.D.
Rita Weil is a professional medical and community interpreter and an experienced interpreter trainer for Bridging the Gap and Cross-Cultural Communications, LLC Medical Terminology for Interpreters.
She has 14 years of experience as a Spanish interpreter, working first in the Washington, DC area, and presently in Philadelphia, PA.
Rita is a former Peace Corps volunteer having served in Colombia and as a Peace Corps Response volunteer in Honduras. She lived and worked in Venezuela for nine years.
Rita Weil served as an Executive Officer of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters for 4 years.
She is presently a board member of the Delaware Valley Translators Association (DVTA).
Rita has been a volunteer interpreter on three medical brigades to Latin America, serving in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Ecuador.
Her advanced degrees include:
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Master’s in Education
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Master’s in Adult Education
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Ph.D. in Counseling and Student Development
Tina Peña is from Lima, Peru. She is an associate professor of Spanish at Tulsa Community College. She also teaches Community and Medical Interpreting for the Interpreting Certificate Program at TCC.
Tina Peña is also the host of “Temas en Tulsa,” a television program produced in Spanish that covers current events and topics of importance to Spanish speaking viewers.
She is the former Chair of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters.
She is a member of American Translators Association, the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the Governor's Task Force for the Advancement of Hispanic Students in Higher Education, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and serves on the following boards:
• Language Culture Bank
• Martin Luther King Commemoration Society
• TCC Global Fest
• Community Service Council Resource member
• ACLU Oklahoma.
She is the recipient of the NANIA 2012 Volunteer of the Year Award, the 2007 Pinnacle Award Winner, the 2015 Oklahoma Human Rights Award, and was recognized as an "Orgullo Peruano" by Peruanos en Oklahoma in 2013.
Álvaro Vergara-Mery is a certified Spanish medical interpreter, trainer, and supervisor in the Cultural and Linguistic Services Department at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is in charge of interpreter education and training, language proficiency, cultural competence, translation, and curriculum design.
He has extensive experience as a practicing medical interpreter in a Level I Trauma center that serves a large population of Spanish-speaking patients and is nationally recognized for his advanced-level workshops for medical interpreters. He is a Bridging the Gap-certified trainer and a cultural and language access consultant.
Additionally, he served as an Executive Officer on the Board of Directors of the National Board of Certification for Medical interpreters for five years and was Vice-President of the Nevada Interpreters Translators Association.
He has developed and taught trainings for the International Medical Interpreters Association and has also worked closely with the California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA) delivering various workshops for many years. He is the recipient of CHIA’s 2016 Trainer of the Year Award.
Dr. Vergara-Mery has a Master’s in Teaching and a Ph.D. in Spanish.
César Peña-Ramirez
B.S., HUB-CMI
A native of Lima Peru, César has lived in the United States for over 20 years. He holds a Hub-CMI. César graduated from Oral Roberts University with a degree in Spanish. César has been teaching Medical Interpreting at Tulsa Community College, credit and continuing education classes.
In 2011 César was awarded the IMIA National Medical Interpreter of the Year Award. One of the qualifications of being nominated for such an award is that the recipient must be an effective patient advocate and comfortable in all interpreter roles.
César has not only mastered this notable quality, but many others. Helping other people is at the heart of everything that he does.