Montana World Affairs Council: International Career Week: Maria Rosa Pla Huberti

Opening Doors Through Spanish

Maria Rosa Pla Huberti, Senior Reviser, Spanish Translation Section, United Nations Office at Geneva

Born in Barcelona, Spain, Maria grew up in Catalonia, a bilingual region (Catalan/Spanish) in the Northeastern Spain. Her mother was a French teacher and sparked an early interest in languages. Growing up, music and books in different languages were always present. Maria started to learn French and English at an early age, and German in her teens. Studying translation seemed like a natural choice. While at university, Maria added Japanese to her languages. She earned her BS in Translation from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1991, and subsequently studied a second degree there in Political Science/International Relations, graduating in 1995.

Having spent three years working as a translator at the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C., Maria moved to Geneva, Switzerland in 1998 and started to work as a temporary translator for international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. She passed the UN Competitive Examination for Language Professionals in 1999 and became a permanent UN staff member in 2000. She has worked with the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) since then, translating documents on the subjects dealt with by UNOG (for example, human rights, disarmament, trade and development, the International Law Commission, climate change and desertification).

Maria has been the Spanish coordinator for climate change documentation at the UN since 2009, working on documentation for climate change negotiations and attending several COPs. She co-translated the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.