Panel Discussion
Ana Sofia Correia is an English-to-Portuguese medical translator and writer based in Portugal. Over the past 18 years, she has collaborated with life sciences companies, contract research organisations, language service providers, and medical communication agencies. After 12 years as an in-house translator at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and the Nursing School of Coimbra, she transitioned to full-time freelancing in 2019. Alongside her translation, writing, and linguistic validation services, she authors the newsletter Perspectives on Medical Translation & Writing and co-authors the blog Med & Mark. Since 2023, she has been leading Medical Translation Mentoring, a mentoring programme dedicated exclusively to the community of translators specialising in medical and life sciences. In 2024, she was appointed Vice-President of the Portuguese Medical Writers Association (APMW).
Pauliina Rasi is a writer, communication strategist, and trainer. With 20 years of experience as a journalist and communications consultant, she helps businesses, projects and professionals find the right words to get their message across in a busy digital landscape. She distils her experience in health journalism, corporate communications, and public relations to help her clients produce engaging and educating content that enlightens and enchants readers across Europe.
Eleanor Steele has worked in medical communications (MedComms) since 2004, first as a medical writer, then leading scientific teams in several different agencies. She is now a freelance consultant working as the MedComms Mentor to provide specialist training and mentoring to medical writers and consultancy to agencies around building, nurturing, and developing their medical writing teams. Since April 2024, she has also managed the MedComms Workbook subscription service for MedComms freelancers.
Dr. Emma Hitt Nichols is a medical writer and editor and has been serving medical communications and publishing companies for more than 20 years. She holds a PhD in cancer-related cell signaling, an MS in technical and professional communication, and a BS in biology.
In 2015, Dr. Hitt Nichols founded Nascent Medical, with medical writers serving CME/CPD companies and medical communications agencies, and has grown that to a large medical writing team. She has also developed multiple courses to help train medical writers and editors over the years, including her most recent addition.
Emma lives in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with her husband and 2 cats, enjoying the tumultuous seascape of the Atlantic Ocean as she brings her clients’ projects to life.
Reach out on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmahittnichols/
Sepanta Fazaeli is Head of AI Solutions for Life Sciences at TransPerfect, where he leads the design and delivery of AI-powered solutions for pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device organizations. His work spans the full spectrum of life sciences AI, from regulated document authoring and regulatory intelligence to safety surveillance, compliance automation, and conversational AI for clinical and regulatory workflows.
Before joining TransPerfect, Sepanta served as Clinical Systems & Medical Data Lead at Stryker, where he led enterprise-wide AI and data transformation initiatives across the Trauma & Extremities division, bridging clinical, regulatory, and technical domains. He also represented Stryker on the MedTech Europe AI Act Task Force, contributing to cross-industry efforts to shape practical, risk-based implementation of the EU AI Act for medical devices.
With a background in bioengineering and clinical data science, Sepanta brings both domain depth and technical fluency to the challenge of AI adoption in regulated environments. His approach centers on aligning people, processes, and technology to help life sciences organizations move from isolated pilots to integrated, enterprise-scale intelligence.