Machaela Parkin

Eastern European + Central Asian Languages Lead

Machaela joined Respond as a Ukrainian translator shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 and became a Project Manager for the team a few months later. She is Mexican-American and bilingual in English and Spanish, and she started learning Ukrainian in 2014 through online language exchanges with Ukrainians. Machaela will be graduating from Columbia University in May 2024 with a BA in Human Rights and hopes to eventually advocate for immigrants’ rights as a deportation defense attorney. In her free time, she loves to make playlists, play with her cat, and spend time in the sun.