Mahriyuni was born in Tanjung Pinang on June 2, 1964. She is a lecturer in the Master's Program in Linguistics at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara. Commonly known as Yuni, she is also actively involved as an assessor for the National Accreditation Board for Higher Education (BAN-PT) and as a reviewer for the Directorate General of Higher Education (DPT), Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology.

She earned her doctoral degree in Linguistics from Universitas Sumatera Utara and has participated in a short course in Grenoble, France, as well as a Sandwich Program at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

From 2016 to 2022, she served as Secretary of LLDIKTI Region I (formerly Kopertis) in Medan. During her tenure, she played an active role in strengthening governance and quality assurance among private higher education institutions in North Sumatra.

Her current academic interests focus on Semantics, encompassing teaching, research, and the supervision and examination of master's theses and doctoral dissertations in the Linguistics Study Program at Universitas Sumatera Utara. She is also frequently invited as a speaker at various public and private universities across Indonesia to deliver presentations on accreditation, internal quality assurance systems, and higher education governance and quality management.