Dr. Ali H. Al-Hoorie is an Associate Professor of English Language. He completed his PhD at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Professors Zoltán Dörnyei and Norbert Schmitt. He has published 10 books and more than 60 journal articles, and has presented at about 70 conferences. He is on the editorial board of more than 10 international journals and has reviewed almost 200 journal articles for different journals. He has been elected to the Board of Directors of Saudi TESOL as well as the Saudi Linguistics Society. He has also won several international awards, including the Early Career Scholar Award, the Jake Harwood Outstanding Book Award, and the best paper award from the journal Language Learning.

Dr. Kay Hack (PFHEA) is the Lead Consultant Education for Advance-HE. Her role involves supporting excellence in teaching and learning through strategic leadership and change in HEIs. She led the development and publication of the Advance HE Student Success Framework series and has worked with a diverse range of UK and international Higher Education providers on key themes from the series aimed at improving the student experience and outcomes. She is an experienced facilitator, and recent projects she has designed and led include: • Co-creating principles for adopting generative AI into learning, teaching, and assessment. • Supporting institutions in developing flexible models for higher education. • - Embedding the UN Sustainable Development Goals and sustainability competencies into the curriculum.

Christine Coombe has a Ph.D. in Foreign/Second Language Education from The Ohio State University and is currently an Associate Professor of General Studies at the Higher Colleges of Technology in the UAE. Christine has published over 60 books on various topics in TESOL/ELT. She has lived and worked in the Gulf for the past 33 years. During her tenure, she has won many awards, including the 2002 Spaan Fellowship for Research in Second/Foreign Language Assessment, the 2002-03 TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award, the Chancellor’s Teacher of the Year for 2003-04, the British Council’s International Assessment Award for 2013, and was named to TESOL’s 50@50, which recognizes professionals who have made significant contributions to the TESOL profession within the past 50 years. Dr. Coombe is the 2018 recipient of the James E. Alatis Award, TESOL’s highest recognition, which acknowledges exemplary service to TESOL. Her most recent honor was being named to the US Department of State’s 30@30 English Language Specialists in 2021. This list recognizes ElSpecs who have made an impact on the teaching and training of English language teachers around the world in the last 30 years. Dr. Coombe served as TESOL International Association President (2011-2012) and is currently a TIRF Trustee.

Jakob Patekar holds a double-major M.A. in English Language and Literature and Pedagogy, as well as a Ph.D. in Language Teaching. He spent ten years as a speaking examiner for Cambridge exams and was part of the expert team that developed the Croatian National Curriculum of English. Since 2017, he has been employed at RIT Croatia, an international campus of Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, USA, where he teaches writing courses and public speaking. Since 2023, he has served as the Associate Dean for Research and General Education at RIT Croatia. Additionally, he is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, where he teaches English language teaching methodology and language assessment. His research interests include cross-linguistic influences, early language learning, language assessment, and GenAI in education. He has published over twenty research articles and presented at more than thirty conferences worldwide.

Ahmad Samer Wazan is an Associate Professor at Zayed University’s College of Technological Innovation (CTI). He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toulouse, France, where he specialized in cybersecurity. His research and teaching focus on the fields of cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for cybersecurity, as well as the impact of AI on education. Among his achievements, Dr. Wazan contributed to the development of a new trust model integrated into the ISO/ITU X.509 standard in 2016. In the area of AI integration into education, Dr. Wazan also developed an exam system that enables the extraction of students’ thought artifacts when they use large language models (LLMs) during their exams, which is demonstrated in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwjHaJkbkos.