I grew up convinced that I would become a scientist, and gradually narrowed it down to synthetic organic chemistry by the time I reached graduate school. After a two-year post-doc, I took an academic position at Brooklyn Polytechnic, and when that didn’t pan out I moved to DuPont Agricultural Products in the Chemical Discovery division. I was “released” from DuPont during a big downsizing move, and then joined a small contract research company, then named CB Research & Development, doing outsource work for a number of the big name pharma companies.
Along the way, I picked up languages. Some French and Spanish in elementary school, Latin in high school, German in college, more French and Spanish in grad school along with Russian, Japanese during the DuPont years, and Chinese 5-6 years ago.
In 2002, I left the research life for good and started a freelance translation, editing and technical writing business. In this fourth installment of my career, I translate into English from Japanese, German, French and Spanish, in the fields of medicine, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotechnology, polymers and agrochemicals.
The Science & Technology Division seems like just the right place for me within the ATA, since I rarely or never work outside the abovespecified areas.
The full version of this bio can be found at www.wordalchemytranslation.com/Matthew_F_Schlecht_Bio.pdf.