AAPTI board of directors  

Gustavo Negrete, Interim President

Gustavo Negrete is the past Chair of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters and had previously served as the Secretary of the National Board. He is President and CEO of Titan Language Solutions, a boutique interpreting and translation company, and is the Managing Director of TransInterpreting. He is a Certified HIPAA Privacy Expert and has over twenty years of experience in health care having served in several clinical roles and departments prior to becoming an interpreter. He is a staunch advocate for language access, LEP rights, and the interpreting profession as an active participant in organizations who lobby and or promote these causes.

Giovana Farias-Izmirlian, Treasurer

As a California State Certified Court interpreter since 2013, Giovana has extensive experience as a licensed professional. Her previous experience includes over 10 years in the private sector in the banking and mutual fund industry where she conducted business in English and Spanish. Additionally, her education includes a Bachelor of Arts in International Business with a concentration in Spanish and two years of MBA coursework from Cal State Fullerton.  Ms. Farias-Izmirlian completed the Court Interpreting Program at Southern California School of Interpretation and continuously completes additional coursework to challenge herself and further enhance her skills. 

Giovana works primarily in legal proceedings which includes civil and administrative matters. Additionally, she works with clients who require her services to provide their staff medical/retirement plan enrollment information and company updates.  Most recently, she provides interpretation services during conferences, community and estate planning meetings.  

Ms. Farias-Izmirlian is a also proud member of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) and the Association of Independent Judiciary Interpreters of California (AIJIC).  She is committed to serving others via her vocation and helping her fellow colleagues in the advancement and recognition of the profession.

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Julia Elizarraraz, Secretary  

Julia Elizarraraz is a freelance certified Spanish interpreter and has been court certified for the state of California since 2011. She completed the court interpretation program at Southern California School of Interpretation in Santa Fe Springs, CA, in 2008. Prior to this she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with Departmental Honors from the University of Southern California in 2007. Her honors thesis was written on the importance of linguistic and cultural sensitivity while interpreting in a medical setting. Her research for this thesis was conducted while volunteering in a number of departments at Keck Hospital of USC (then known as USC University Hospital). Julia subsequently completed First Year Law at Purdue University Global, having studied Criminal Law, Contracts, Torts, and Legal Analysis.

As many interpreters and translators do, Julia became interested in the profession when she found herself interpreting and translating for her immigrant parents from a young age. As a teenager, Julia was preparing contracts and legal correspondence in both English and Spanish for her family and community, and by age 14, she was interpreting for her parents in civil court. Her first trial interpretation was for her parents as self-represented plaintiffs, and this is where she discovered her love and talent for simultaneous interpretation. She considers one of her greatest professional moments to be when she was the trial interpreter in a wrongful death case where the jury pool was considered to be hostile toward the Spanish-speaking plaintiffs. After interpreting their testimony on the witness stand, the jury rendered a verdict awarding them $30 million.

Julia is a proud member of AAPTI since it made its public debut in February 2020 and as of the time of this writing, has served on AAPTI’s Membership Committee as Chair since the committee’s inception in April 2021. She has been a member of the Legislative Committee since August 2021. Now, in her capacity as Secretary, she looks forward to collaborating with every member of AAPTI, other colleagues and students of the profession, and the communities we all serve.

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