Payman Vafaee is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University. He earned his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Maryland, with a dissertation on the relative contributions of lexical and syntactic knowledge in second language listening comprehension. Payman is the recipient of Albert Valdman Award from the journal of Studies in Second Language Acquisition and Cambridge University Press for publishing the best paper in 2017, titled "Validating grammaticality judgment tests: Evidence from two new psycholinguistic measures". His research interests include second language assessment and testing, quantitative research methodology, instructed SLA, and cognitive individual differences in SLA. He has published in several journals, including Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Instructed Second Language Acquisition, Journal of Second Language Studies, Studies in TESOL & Applied Linguistics, and International Journal of Language Testing.

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Mahshad is a doctoral student in the applied linguistic program of Teachers College in the second language assessment track. She has an MA in teaching English as a foreign language which she received back in 2007 in Iran. She attended Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, from 2007 to 2011 where she got her PhD in Applied Linguistics, in the EIL track (English as an international language). She joined Educational Testing Service (ETS) as a test developer and consultant in 2012 and currently works as a rater for them, rating the speaking section of the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). For her research, Mahshad is interested in innovative approaches to test crafting (such as SBA) as well as the role of technology in enhancing our understanding and improvement of second language tests. She has been working on the English SBA and is now in the Persian SBA test development team.

Manizhe earned her Master degree in “Teaching Persian to Speakers of other Languages” from one of the most prestigious universities of Tehran. She taught Persian at Qazvin University for 12 years and has been at the University of Maryland as a Lecturer since 2014. She is the author of three books, which are used as course books to teach Persian inside and outside of Iran, and the is co- author of two other books. Her work has been published in several Persian Journals. Her primary interests are in second language teaching and testing and material development.

Reza is a research assistant of the Persian Language Project based at the University of Maryland, where he has been SME of Persian in NFLC. He received his M.A. in Art Studies from the University of Tehran, Iran and his B.A. in English Language and Literature from Shariz University, Iran. Reza is also a freelance translator of Persian with numerous published works in Iran.