Nataly Kelly was born in Illinois, USA, in 1975. She obtained her B.A. in Spanish and studied foreign languages and literature in Ecuador, at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. As a Fulbright scholar in Spanish sociolinguistics, she participated in the M.A. program in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on language policy at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador.
Her published work in Latin American academic journals includes studies on coloniality of power and linguistics as well as perjorative ethnonyms in Ecuadorian Spanish. She is the author of a book on interpreting and has contributed book chapters on topics of translation, interpreting, language access, and indigenous rights, such as Pueblos indígenas y Plan Colombia, published by Ediciones Abya-Yala (Ecuador). She works to make translation more widespread and accessible worldwide in her role as Vice President of Market Development at Smartling, a translation technology firm. A Spanish translator and court-certified interpreter, she is a member of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and the American Translators Association (ATA). She lives in New Hampshire.
