Maija Hirvonen

Research projects

• LINDA (Using Language to Interpret Nonstructured Data, Emil Aaltonen Foundation, PI: Tuomas Virtanen/signal processing, 2021-2023)
• GUIDE (Guided Audio Captioning for Complex Acoustic Environments, Jane & Aatos Erkko Foundation, PI: Annamaria Mesaros/signal processing, 2022-2023) 
• MeMAD (Methods for Managing Audiovisual Research, Horizon Europe, 2018-2021, PI at University of Helsinki)
• MUTABLE (Multimodal Translation with the Blind, Academy of Finland, 2017-2020)

Institutional responsibilities 

• Head of German (language, culture and translation) in the BA and MA program of Languages and in the MA program of Multilingual Communication and Translation Studies
• Director of Langnet (Finnish Network of Doctoral Programmes in Language Studies), 2024-2027
• Co-leader of TACCU (Tampere Accessibility Unit) 
• Co-leader of MULTI (Multimodality in Translation and Interpreting research group) 
• Former Chair of Plural (Multidisciplinary Research Centre for Languages and Cultures)

Teaching and supervision 

• advanced level courses in German language, translation studies, and accessibility 
• supervision of MA and PhD students, postdocs

Expert in accessibility (especially audio description), multimodal and intermodal translation and interpreting, blind-sighted interaction, human-informed machine learning and artificial intelligence

• Member of the European-wide Network on Inclusive Communication in Higher Education (NIICTE)
• Member of the audio description board assigned by the Cultural Service of the Visually Impaired in Finland (Näkövammaisten kulttuuripalvelu ry)
• Associate Partner in the GreenerAge project (ERASMUS+ consortium Climate-Change and Environmental Literacy for Urban Citizens 55+, led by Tampere University) 

  

Previously 

• Vice Chair of Young Academy Finland (Nuorten tiedeakatemia), membership in YAF in 2017-2021

 

Areas of expertise and research interests

- intermodal translation (audio and video description, audio captioning, multisensory interpreting, environmental description)

- accessibility

- multimodality in translation and interpreting

- multimodal interaction, asymmetrical interaction

- shared cognition

- human-informed artificial intelligence

- multimodal machine translation

- media culture, film studies

- cognitive linguistics

Plural, MULTI

Translation Studies (translation process research, media and cultural accessibility, intersemiotic translation)

Linguistics (pragmatics, semantics, conversation analysis, cognitive linguistics)

Cognitive Science (4E cognition, shared/team cognition)

Academy of Finland individual postdoctoral grant (#295104) for 2017-2019/2020 ; Horizon2020 Research and Innovation grant under ICT-20-2017 (#780069) for 2018-2020