Mahdi Duris is a PhD student in Applied Linguistics and Technology (ALT) with a research interest in the area(s) of pronunciation, phonetics, and phonology. Specifically, the automation of intelligibility ratings by way of the Acoustic Masking and Intelligibility (AMI) theory. His passion for language developed as a child after living in the US, Senegal, Venezuela and France. He completed an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) at Saint Cloud State University (2020) while teaching EAP (English for Academic Purposes). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from George Mason University (2006) and also obtained a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) from Cambridge University (2012). Mahdi has an experience of over 10 years teaching communication skills, financial literacy in Spanish, general and academic English at financial institutions and universities, including Capital One in the D.C. Metropolitan area, Technical and Vocational Training Schools (Jazan and Al-Qassim) and King Saud University (Riyadh) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.