Atta Gebril is a professor of applied linguistics and associate dean for research and graduate studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University in Cairo.
He obtained his PhD in Foreign Language and ESL Education with a minor in language testing from the University of Iowa (USA).
He previously worked for American College Testing (ACT, Inc.) where he was part of the Workkeys team and was a Spaan Fellow at the University of Michigan and also an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Free University in Berlin and Humboldt University.
His research interests include integrated writing assessment, teacher assessment literacy, and learning-oriented assessment.
He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, and Assessing Writing. From 2018-2022, he served as an associate editor Language Assessment Quarterly.
His book entitled Assessment myths, co-authored with Lia Plakans, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2015.
His book “Learning-oriented language assessment” was published by Routledge in 2021.
He received several awards in recognition of his work, including the Scopus award representing the highest-impact scholarship in the field of education in Egypt from Elsevier and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank in 2019, the Best Article Award in the field of language Testing from the International Language Testing Association in 2018 and the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers for his work in the area of applied linguistics in 2023.
Dr. Sahbi Hidri is Division Chair and Assistant Professor in the Early Childhood Education Program at the Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Faculty of Human & Social Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics, specializing in language assessment, test validation, psychometrics, and dynamic assessment. He has held academic, assessment, and leadership roles in different countries, including work on international exam validation and educational reform projects. His research focuses on assessment literacy, competency-based assessment, standard setting, curriculum design, AI-resilient assessment, and early childhood education. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals. His publication record also includes edited books and chapters with many book publishers. As an editor, reviewer, speaker, and published scholar, he connects assessment theory with classroom, institutional, and policy practice across the MENA region and beyond.