Stanford National Forensic Institute

Nicholas Aranda is a graduate of Regis University in Denver, Colorado where he studied Philosophy and Peace Studies. In High School, Nicholas enjoyed competitive success in PF, WSD, and LD. His senior year of High School, Nicholas was a William Woods Tate Jr. NSDA Student of the Year finalist. Nicholas presided as President of the Regis University Debate Society, where won numerous championships and invitationals, including the U.S. Universities Western Debate Championship, the Rocky Mountain Championship, The University of Utah IV, and more. Nicholas helps in Tab rooms around the country and adjudicates tournaments around the world. In his academic career, Nicholas has prioritized philosophical training in phenomenology, critical theory, ethics, and metaphysics; political training in International Relations and theories of development; and communication training in argumentation, persuasion, & conflict resolution. Nicholas is a seasoned researcher and thinker, with his most recent collaborative research on critical race theory and George Yancy forthcoming. In the fall Nicholas will be a Graduate Student, Instructor, & Debate Coach at Kansas State University .

Hanh Do has been involved in competitive debate for the past 24 years on the collegiate and the high school level as a coach, consultant, and adjudicator.  Her students have cleared and placed at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Isidore Newman, Harvard-Westlake, The Glenbrooks, Holy Cross, Grapevine, Hockaday, and the UT Longhorn Classic.  In addition to teaching PF since its inception, she has instructed in LD, policy, parli, BP, and Worlds Schools Debate.  She has had the immense privilege of traveling internationally to adjudicate and her team in 2016 cleared and placed in the Pan American Debating Championships.  Currently she is the Assistant Director of Forensics at John Paul II in Plano, Texas and has served as the Big Questions Chair for the past two years at the National Speech and Debate Association's National Tournament.  

Currently a coach at Kent Denver School and University of Rutgers - Newark, Nate has been involved in debate for the last decade. He personally competed in high school Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas, and Policy debates, and travelled with the University of Wyoming Policy team on the NDT/CEDA circuit during college. He also received a first round bid, ranking seventh in the nation, from the NPTE/NPDA Parliamentary Debate circuit while competing at CSU-Pueblo. In his high school coaching career, Nate has coached multiple students to the highest tiers of competition, with multiple out-rounds appearances and speaker awards at the largest national circuit tournaments, and at the prestigious Tournament of Champions cleared two teams to the top 8 with one making it to the semifinals. He most recently completed his first year with the fantastic coaching staff at the University of Rutgers - Newark, and is excited to be working with you all this summer! 

Koshak is the current director of debate at Cypress Woods High School. He has coached multiple TOC, State, and Nationals qualifers and outround particpants throughout his career. His argumentation focus is mostly centered around high theory debate with an emphasis on authors such as Deleuze, Baudrillard, Bataille, and Derrida. 

Ben is an incoming sophomore studying economics at Stanford University. He debated in MSPDP for three years at Sutter Middle School and in NPDL (American Parliamentary) for four years as the captain of the C.K. McClatchy High School team, finishing his senior year ranked 12th nationally. He coached the Sutter Middle School debate team from 2016-2018, during which the team achieved its first league championship since Ben's 8th grade year on the team. He also served as the Assistant Tournament Director for the Capitol Region Debate League for the 2017-2018 season. Ben now debates in British Parliamentary and American Parliamentary Debate for the Stanford Debate Society.

Orion is an attorney, college professor and debate coach.  Orion is currently the Director of Forensics (Debate) at the University of San Francisco.  In 2012, Orion began teaching college Public Speaking courses at San Francisco State University and now regularly teaches public speaking at every major college in San Francisco.  In addition, Orion taught several sections of High School public speaking while coaching debate at St. Vincent de Paul High School, and has taught at workshops for the Bay Area Urban Debate League. 

In 2015, Orion began assisting the debate team at University of San Francisco and became the Director of Forensics at the University of San Francisco in January 2016.  Orion is currently a member of the TriForce Debate Cooperative, sharing coaching resources between SFSU, CCSF and USF.  In the Fall of 2013, Orion became the varsity travel team coach for the Bay Area Urban Debate League and asssumed assistant coaching duties at San Francisco State University.   In the Fall of 2011, Orion became an argumentation coach at St. Vincent de Paul High School and qualified a team to the Tournament of Champions for the first time.  Orion was an assistant debate coach and graduate student for California State University at Fullerton from 2009-2011.  Orion worked as an assistant debate coach at the University of Redlands and at San Francisco State University while in Law School from 2005-2008. 

While in law school at UC Hastings, Orion participated as a member (and coach) of the moot court team, winning awards for his rebuttal speeches in Maritime Law.  In college, Orion participated in policy debate at the University of Redlands for 4 years, finishing as a quarter-finalist at the 2004 NDT and as a quarter-finalist and the 16th individual speaker at the 2005 NDT.  Orion participated in policy debate for 3 years at Millard West High School in Omaha, Nebraska, and attended the Tournament of Champions.

Edward Williams is the Director of Middle School Debate at Pace Academy and Director of Operations at the Global Debate Symposium. Edward has over 25 years of experience coaching top-level debaters. Prior to Pace Academy, Edward coached Calhoun High School, Woodward Academy, Marist School, and Charlotte Latin School, where all those teams qualified for the Tournament of Champions and NSDA. On the national circuit, Edward has coached champions at every major national tournament in the United States including Greenhill, St. Marks, The Glenbrooks, Barkley Forum, and Harvard Round Robin. Ed coached the Top Speaker at the 1993 NSDA National Tournament and 1994 Runner-up. At Woodward Academy, Ed also coached the 2000 Tournament of Champions Runner-up. In addition, students coached by Edward went on to win the 2008 National Debate Tournament and 2009 National Debate Tournament Runner-Up. Edward has been an instructor at Summer Workshops at Bates College, Dartmouth College, University of Texas, and Wake Forest University. Edward is a past board member of the National Debate Coaches Association. Edward has served as a national judge for Team USA at The World Schools Debate Championship.  Over the past 25 years, Edward’s students have been admitted to every Ivy League University. Summer 2020 is Edward’s first summer at SNFI.

Mujda Alamzai competed on the James Logan Forensics Team for four years, accumulating tournament titles in a number of events. She competed in Lincoln-Douglas for her first two years of high school and went on to compete in Public Forum for the remainder of her forensics career. She cleared at the NCFL Grand National Tournament both her junior and senior year and was awarded James Logan’s Public Forum award both those years. She also was an instructor last summer at SNFI last summer. She is studying bioengineering at Santa Clara University.

Alex Alifimoff debated Public Forum for four years at Canterbury High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was fully qualified to the Tournament of Champions in both Public Forum and Congressional Debate. Alex has been very involved in the Public Forum community and has worked with Dougherty Valley High School and The Harker School.  Alex has broken at multiple national circuit tournaments including Princeton, Berkeley, and Lexington and has had multiple admirable speaker finishes (Top Speaker, Indiana States, Princeton).  Alex was a National Finalist at Dallas Nationals 2011 in Congressional Debate and is currently the Captain of Parliamentary Debate for the Stanford Debate Society.  Alex has been in elimination rounds at numerous American Parliamentary Debate Association tournaments.

Nina Alomar is a rising senior at California State University, Northridge pursuing a major in Communication Studies and a minor in Political Science. Nina is a serious student who is thoroughly engaged in varied aspects of campus life and is a varsity debater who has shown dedication both through competion and through her volunteer work with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. This past spring, Nina interned in Washington, D.C. where she cultivated her professional communication competencies along with her impressive administrative skills.

Cimmi is a senior at The University of Texas at Austin. She is majoring in psychology with a minor in communication studies. Competing in extemp, LD, and CX in high school, she was excited to continue her journey as a member of the UT Speech Team. She enjoys competing in Persuasive, Informative, After Dinner Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, and impromptu. This year she was a octafinalist in Rhetorical Criticism at the NFA national tournament. Cimmi is excited to have the opportunity to coach this summer at SNFI.

Vince has been in the debate community for 20 years, having competed in both high school and college. As a debater, Vince cleared at many national tournaments and was a qualifier for the National Debate Tournament. As a coach, teams led by Vince have cleared at numerous national tournaments, been awarded speaker awards, and have qualified for multiple National Debate Tournaments. Vince was an Adjunct Professor of Communication Studies at San Francisco State for five years; teaching courses on public speaking, argumentation and debate, and other communication studies content. For the previous five years Vince has set up and helped coach competitive academic debate programs in China. While there he has coached three different students to be the Top Speaker at the Chinese National High School Debate Championship tournament in three consecutive years.

Ben Anderson is a sophomore at Stanford, originally from Liberty, Missouri. In high school, he competed in International Extemporaneous and Lincoln-Douglas debate with the Liberty High speech and debate team. He qualified to nationals three times, finishing in the top 30 of IX his junior year, on top of a third-place finish at State. Ben continues to debate in college with Stanford's Parliamentary Debate team. Though he hasn't figured out his major yet, Ben's interests include literature, politics, philosophy, math, and music. He plays in the Stanford orchestra and is involved in climate activism on campus. Ben is very excited to join SNFI as a Parli and LD instructor.

DaCobi is currently a debater for Chabot College in Hayward California. DaCobi competed for 3 years in high school policy debate and currently competes in several formats of collegiate debate including policy, parlimamentary and Lincoln-Douglas. 

As a student at Bishop O' Dowd High School, Carey Appeldorn competed very successfully in both league and invitational parliamentary debate tournaments. He won trophies at every tournament he attended, ultimately winning the state tournament in 2010. Now a student at UCLA, he is pursuing a double major in Political Science and Middle Eastern and North African Studies. He remains involved with debate as a tutor and coach in Los Angeles.

Caspar Arbeeny is a rising senior at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. He competed in public forum debate at Poly Prep in NY for all four years of high school, and hascoached public forum for Edgemont Jr/Sr. High Schools for the last three years. Over the course of his competitive career, Caspar amassed 12 bids to the tournament of champions, reached the quarterfinal round at the 2016 Tournament of Champions, reached the semifinal round at the 2015 Yale Invitational, and championed the 2016 Lexington Winter Invitational. As a coach, he has helped three different teams qualify to the Gold Tournament of Champions, as well as outrounds at numerous national tournamnets. Caspar is incredibly excited to be working at SNFI this summer.

Alyssa is a proud SNFI alum. She debated for four years with DeBakey High School in Houston, Texas during which she won numerous regional tournaments. She and her partner first qualified for nationals as sophomores. In their senior year, they double-qualified for Texas Forensic Association state where they were ranked in the top 15 of 100+ teams. As her school's Team Captain and PF coach, she helped teams to regional wins, TOC bids, and NSDA nationals. She attends American University in Washington D.C. where she majors in International Studies and minors in Economics.

Nadia Arid is currently the head LD coach at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, CA and has been since 2009. She also coached Presentation High School in San Jose, CA from 2008 to 2009. She has coached students who have reached late outrounds at various circuit tournaments and who have qualified to the Tournament of Champions, the California State Tournament, and the NFL National Tournament. Committed to issues of educational inequality, Nadia co-founded the East Palo Alto Youth Court Connection in 2009 and has recently helped to start a new speech and debate program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, CA. In high school, Nadia was captain of the debate team at Presentation High School for two years and was the first from her school to qualify to the TOC. Nadia qualified to the California State Tournament her sophomore, junior, and senior year and qualified to both the TOC and the NFL National Tournament her senior year. She will be graduating from Stanford University this year (June 2012) with a Bachelors degree in International Relations and will be finishing a Masters in Sociology at Stanford University next year.

Ashley Artmann is an entering UCLA law student and Stanford University graduate class of 2012. She has self-published a Public Forum Manual, Beyond Resolved, and has taught at SNFI since 2009. While at Stanford she coached PF at St. Francis HS in Mountain View, CA where she helped coach teams to the TOC, National Tournament Top 20, as well as bid-rounds at many national tournaments. She was also a member of the Stanford Debate Society. In high school, she competed in Public Forum for three years at Green Valley High School in Las Vegas, receiving awards such as 7th at NFL Nationals in 2007, top 40 Nationals 2008, Berkeley Invitational Champion 2008, two-time Nevada State Champion, participant in 1st Annual PF Challenge, as well as many local and regional titles. Ashley also competed extensively in Extemp, earning 4th at NFL Nationals 2008 in Extemp Comm and reaching quarterfinals in 2006, 2008 Nevada State Champion in Extemp, 1st at La Costa Canyon, 2nd at Long Beach Invitational, as well as local titles.

The 2018-2019 season will be Paxton's 11th year of involvement in forensics. While competing for Tempe Preparatory Academy, Paxton reached the final round of Impromptu Speaking at the Cal Berkeley Invitational, and as a member of Arizona State University's team placed 5th in Improptu at the AFA National Individual Events Tournament, 5th in Extemporaneous Speaking at the NFA Tournament, and reached various national elimination rounds in Duo Interpretation, Prose Interpretation, and Rhetorical Criticism. Paxton coached for his high school alma mater for four years, assisting students in winning several state titles, qualifying to nationals, and reaching elimination rounds at the UKTOC and NSDA National Tournament in Impromptu, Extemporaneous, and Original Oratory. While coaching for my alma mater university, his students reached final rounds in Extemporaenous, Impromptu, Prose, and Rhetorical Criticism at the AFA-NIET, National Speech Championship, and NFA Tournament, including championships in the Limited Preparation events. Paxton believes that the discipline and creativity that coaches can help their students develop in every event (particularly the LPs) aren't inherent talent, they're skills that can be taught, and so he approaches the events that he coaches with detail, positivity, and a goal - that his students learn something from every single practice speech.

Max Barnhart is an undergraduate majoring in Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Throughout his four years as a Public Forum debater for Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, Max attended the Kentucky National Debate Institute, the National Debate Forum and the Harvard Institute for Public Forum Debate. In his senior year, Max was a Public Forum Co-Captain at Whitman, was a Quarterfinalist at the Tournament of Champions, won the Blake Edie Invitational, was in finals at the Blake Round Robin, won the New York City Invitational Round Robin, was a Co-Champion at the New York City Invitational and was in finals at Harvard Invitational.

Joseph spent his collegiate career debating for Southwestern College on the Policy debate cirtcuit. Since then he's been involved in policy debate as an instuctor and coach for various high schools in the orange county and LA area as well as SWC. His most recent success has been helping to coach the team that won second place at the national urban debate league in the 2017-2018 high school season. 

Emma Barton is a rising Sophomore at the University of California Berkeley majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Philosophy. Emma is a varsity debater for the Berkeley APDA team. In her first year at Berkeley she broke to varsity from novice at several tournaments. She was the 5th novice speaker and the 2nd novice team at the Stanford APDA tournament and 3rd place novice team at the Wellesley APDA tournament. She is going to be the tournament director for the Berkeley APDA team for the 2016-2017 year. 

Sheelah Bearfoot graduated from Delta Charter HS in 2012 with 2,912 NFL points, where she competed in LD, Public Forum, Impromptu, and Extemp all four years and continues to assist in a wide range of IE and debate events. Her senior year, she founded the first competitive middle school forensics program in San Joaquin county, during which time she had students final in Novice HI at Stanford and take 1st place in the NJFL consolation event of “TV commercial”. She has finaled at the Stanford, MLK, Long Beach and Berkeley Invitationals in Extemp, which qualified her to TOC Extemp her senior year, where she placed 2nd in supplemental Impromptu. She finished 14th in California at the 2012 State Tournament in International Extemp and broke to the top 32 in Impromptu at the NFL 2012 Nationals. Sheelah is a Genetics and Plant Biology major at UC Berkeley and member of Cal’s NPDA and IE teams, on which she qualified to the 2013 AFA (collegiate IE nationals) in Extemp and Impromptu.

Hannah is a rising senior at Brown University. She is a political science concentrator with an additional focus in psychology and philosophy.  Hannah competed in LD for three years and graduated in 2011. She qualified to the Arizona State Tournament all three years, placing 3rd her sophomore year, 2nd her junior year, and winning the championship her senior year.  She qualified to nationals all three years and placed in the top 40 during her senior year. As captain of her debate team junior and senior year, Hannah was the sole coach of both the novice and varsity members of her team. After graduating from high school, Hannah went on to coach the Hamilton High School’s Debate team for one year, and then the Mountain View High School’s Debate team the following year. She was also hired by the NFL to write topic analyses and direct Skype session with LD debaters across the nation. She currently competes on the Parliamentary Debate team at Brown and was the novice coach of the team last year.

Ian Beier is currently a PhD student and assistant coach at the University of Kansas and the College Preparatory School. In 2017, KU cleared three teams to the elimination rounds of the National Debate Tournament and had one team in the quarter finals of the tournament. In 2016, KU qualified three teams to the National Debate Tournament and made it to the finals of the tournament. From 2013-2015, he coached at Damien High School. During this time, the debate team remained competitively successful and cleared at several national tournaments. In 2015, Damien High School made it to finals of the National Forensics League tournament.  Prior to his time at Damien, Ian was the Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 2010 to 2013. During that time, UNLV qualified six teams to the National Debate Tournament, qualifying with the top seed in the district in both 2012 and 2013.

Andrew is a rising senior at Stanford currently majoring in Management Science and Engineering. Starting as a freshman competing for SDS, Andrew has broken at multiple APDA tournaments and was awarded the nation's top novice speaker at the US Universities British Parliamentary National Championships.  Andrew attended Evanston Township High School in Chicago where he competed in Congressional debate under the guidance of Jeff Hannan and former national champion Noah Whinston.

Patrick Berger teaches economics at The Nueva School. As a policy debater for James Logan High School, Patrick won 2nd at the 2009 NFL National Championship in addition to qualifying to multiple TOCs. In the past year of assisting the Nueva public forum program, the team qualified six students to the TOC, won Bronx Science, closed out Berkeley, finaled at Stanford, and closed out Harker. This will be Patrick's third summer returning to the SNFI public forum program.

Aracelis Biel is the Director of Debate at the Collegiate School  in New York City.  Her students frequently reach elimination rounds at regional and national tournaments, and her students have qualified for the Tournament of Champions in each of the last four years.  She holds a BA with high honors from Smith College, where she double majored in English and Philosophy, and is undertaking graduate study at Columbia University. Her primary interest as a debate educator is to increase the research prowess and analytical skills of her students.

Taylor Blackburn is a graduate student at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A 2015 graduate of Bates College, she majored in Rhetoric and competed for the Brooks Quimby Debate Council in both British and American Parliamentary formats. She was champion of the Yale IV, Brandeis IV, and was the first American woman to win the United States Universities Debating Championship in 2014. She also proceeded to finals at the North American Universities Debating Championship, and twice to outrounds at the World University Debating Championship. While competing on the American Parliamentary Debate Association circuit, she received numerous team and speaker awards, including 4th place Team of the Year in 2014. Taylor is pursuing her MFA in Writing and Producing and Television. In her spare time she enjoys movies, hiking, and cooking.

Bennett is a rising sophomore at Tufts University studying Political Science with an emphasis on Critical Race and Queer theories. As a high school senior at West High School in Madison, WI, he received 4 bids to the Tournament of Champions, winning two semis bid tournaments (Middleton, Manchester-Essex), made quarterfinals at the Glenbrooks, and semifinals at West DM Valley. He ended up 5th seed at TOC and finished in octafinals. Since high school, he has worked as a private coach for multiple schools, qualifying 5 teams to the TOC (gold and silver). Bennett also worked as a Public Forum instructor (2016) and curriculum coordinator (2017) at the Northwestern Debate Institute. 

Austin brings ten years of debate competition and coaching experience to the SNFI. In high school, he competed in Policy Debate for 3 years at Centennial, in Boise, Idaho. He, and his debate partner Paige Spraker, would be the first team from Centennial to debate in a Tournament of Champions bid round in the prior 8 years. In college, he debated at the University of Puget Sound for 4 years in Policy Debate; Austin would be a 3 time Cross Examination Debate Association elimination round debater, top 20 individual speaker, and 2 year National Debate Tournament attendent, and 2016 All American debater.

After graduating, he has finished two years of debate coaching at the University of Puget Sound. First, in Parlimentary Debate, then in Policy Debate. In 2018, he was the Pacific Region Critic of the Year - demonstrating a successful shift from competitor to coach and judge. In 2017, he was fortunate enough to work with high schoolers at the Pioneer Debate Institute at Lewis and Clark University for 2 weeks; his cohort were young high school students with little-to-no debate experience. 

This summer he brings a goofy smile, lighthearted but disciplined coaching to help students achieve their educational goals, and (very likely) bad taste in pop music!

 

My name is Sara Beth Brooks, and I am from Sacramento, CA. As a competitor, I participated in policy debate and individual events. In policy I qualified twice to the NDT, appeared in elimination debates at nearly every major national tournament, and won multiple speaker awards. I have spent four years coaching high school policy debate and two years coaching high school public forum debate. My students have advanced to elimination debates at many major national high school tournaments and I have coached several teams to championships, including the 2017 Stanford Invitational champions in policy debate. I hold a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and I coach for College Prep in Oakland, CA (policy) and BL Debate in Vancouver, BC (public forum).

Stephan Brooks had the honor and privilige of competing and coaching for nearby James Logan High School's nationally recognized forensics program from 2001-2011. As a competitor he was exposed to all of the competitive high school debate formats, and focused primarily on Public Forum and Parliamentary Debate just as both events were exploding in popularity all over California and the rest of the country. While coaching at Logan, Stephan's teams won both the 2007 & 2008 CA State Championship teams in Public Forum.

After leaving James Logan, Stephan became the Debate Director at Olive Children Foundation in neighboring Fremont, CA. At Olive, he built the middle school forensics program there that now currently ranks as the largest member school of the National Junior Forensics League (NJFL) and was one of three schools in the country to be awarded the "Overall School of Excellence" award for its performance in both speech and debate at the 2013 NJFL National Tournament.

Amanda Bryan debated for Coon Rapids High School in Minnesota from 2003-2007. Since then she has coached LD for Apple Valley, Robbinsdale Armstrong and Blaine High Schools. She is currently a fourth year Political Science PhD student at the University of Minnesota where she studies American politics, judicial politics and statistical methodology.

Isabella (Buddy) Burch is entering her sixth year of parliamentary debate. In four years of CHSSA debate, she competed in league tournaments, as well as major invitationals including the California Cup. Entering her second year of British Parliamentary debate at Claremont McKenna College, Buddy has had the opportunity to compete nationally and internationally, most notably at Cambridge University in England. In addition to competing, Buddy has judged in the World Schools, Middle School Public Debate Program and High School Public Debate Program formats. She is a potential government/philosophy double major who also enjoys time spent singing with her all-female a Capella group.

Judy Butler is one of the most experienced summer instructors in the nation, having taught at over 50 debate workshop sessions. Judy has coached debate at Emory University, Georgia State University, Spelman College, Woodward Academy, and August Prep. Her teams have won numerous college and high school tournaments. Judy has been coaching the University of West Georgia for the past three years and is currently assisting the debate program at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia. Judy always gets rave reviews as a dynamic and thought-provoking educator.

Hunter is currently a Graduate Assistant at the University of Wyoming where she coaches policy debate and studies rhetoric.  As a debater she qualified to both the 69th and 70th National Debate Tournament, cleared to elimination rounds at many regional and national tournaments, and recieved a handful of speaker awards.  Hunter's senior year she was a quarter-finalist at CEDA and a double-octo-finalist at the NDT.  She also recieved the All-American Debate Squad Award at CEDA in 2016. 

James debated for 4 years with Kent Denver School in Colorado and graduated in 2013. He is an alumn of the SNFI program. As captain of his team senior year, he taught younger debaters and debated very frequently on both the local and national circuits. James qualified for his state tournament all four years, placing in the top eight two years. He qualified for NFL nationals in LD sophomore, junior, and senior year. He also qualified to NFL nationals in Extemp three times and Senate once. James also qualified to the national Tournament of Champions his senior year. In addition, he made it into a number of late out rounds at many national and local tournaments and won the Alta tournament in Utah. Currently, James attends Middlebury College, where he was the Parliamentry Debate Society president as a sophomore, attended nationals as a freshman and sophomore, and was ranked in the top 25 debaters nationally in his first full year at the college. This will be his fourth year teaching at Stanford. 

Rashid was the top speaker at the 2014 National Debate Tournament (the collegiate national championship in policy debate), becoming the first African-American to receive this award. At the same tournament he was also a semifinalist and the first seeded team in preliminary rounds. Throughout the year, Rashid cleared at nearly every national tournament and received his 2nd back to back First Round At Large Bid to the NDT. He was also a Finalist at the Cross Examination Debate Association debate tournament of 2014. In high school, Rashid debated for the Bay Area Urban Debate League at Skyline High School in Oakland, CA.

With combined winning experience of over 40 years, Sarah Rosenberg and Luis Cardenas have coached students to hundreds of final rounds across the country. Their students have won DUO at CFL Nationals and have tied for 1st in DUO at NFL Nationals twice. They have had over 30 National Finalists at both CFL and NFL and have won countless State Championships in California, New York, Philadelphia and Florida. Current projects center on The Festival of New American Musicals and Future Fest, working with composers such as Stephen Schwartz, Jeff Marx, Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Sondheim. NYC credits include the Off-Broadway musicals Fools in Love and Tempest Toss'd, one a doo-wop re imagining of A Midsummer Nights Dream and the other, a re imagining of The Tempest.  Both are designed to  make watching Shakepeare a family event and have won rave reviews in major newspapers across the country. These musicals have also been showcased at BAM, The New York Musical Theater Festival, El Portal, Theatre Row in Hollywood, and The Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, CO. they also have a new professional theater company in New York City called Open Hydrant. This is the first Equity ensemble theater company in the Bronx serving under-served artists. Their work also can be seen in the new film, Shakespeare High Executive Produced by Kevin Spacey, which premiered at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and will premiere on Showtime this fall. Rosie/Lou have coached for Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science, Florida Forensic Institute, Bronx Prep, Holy Ghost Prep, San Marino High School, Cleveland High School, James Logan and The PUC Schools. For more info visit: www.shakespearehigh.org  www.lafestival.org http://thepoint.org http://openhydrant.org

Christine debated for four years at the Hockaday School in Dallas, TX. She qualified to the TOC as a junior and to TFA State three times. Her junior and senior years, she reached elimination rounds of every bid tournament she attended, including Greenhill, Blake, Harvard, and St. Marks, and was 2nd speaker at St. Marks. She also attended the Vassar, Lexington, Sunvitational, and Hockaday round robins and won the first ever "Top Smiler" award at the Lexington Round Robin. Christine will attend Stanford University in the fall.

Jakob competed in high school for the Windsor HS debate team. He had the best league record in Parli his sophomore and junior years and the best PF record his senior year. He competed for two years for Santa Rosa Junior College where he took the gold medal at the California state championship as well as the Phi Rho Pi national championship; he finished the season as the #43 ranked NPDA team. Jakob coached the Sonoma Academy debate team in the 2012-2013 school year where they finished third at the Stanford Invitational in Parli debate. Jakob now competes for the University of Nevada at Reno, a top 10 NPDA school.

Beth is excited to be joining SNFI!  She is in her fifteenth year teaching and directing forensics at Brophy College Prep in Phoenix.  She is the president of the Arizona Speech and Debate Coaches Association, she serves on the NFHS speech and debate advisory board, and she has coached many national outround participants and finalists in extemporaneous speaking.  She has directed curriculum at several other camps in oratory and extemp and she is excitedly anticipating learning from and sharing with her students and instructors in Palo Alto come August. 

Clay Cooper is currently a rising junior at UNC-CH where he studies english and music. In high school, Clay competed all four years in speech and debate. In his senior season he competed in the final rounds at several national invitationals, including Yale, Emory, the GMU Patriot Games and the Sunvitational in both Prose/Poetry and Humorous Interpretation, he was also the 2017 NCFL national champion in Oral Interpretation. Clay is a proud SNFI almnus and is super excited to begin working at camp this summer!

Nick began his debate career at Cypress Ridge High School in Houston, Texas. During his time there, he was a two-time state champion in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, a two-time state finalist in Student Congress and a finalist at the MBA Round Robin. During his senior year, he placed 3rd at the 2009 NFL National Championship in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking. Nick went on to graduate from Yale University with a degree in political science. While competing with the Yale Debate Association, he won 9 individual tournaments, was a finalist at the APDA National Championship in 2012 and a semi-finalist at the World University Debating Championship in 2011. During the 2014-15 season, Nick coached the Yale Debate Association, which won its 7th consecutive Club of the Year Award. He currently serves as a coach for the Stanford Debate Society.

Harshita debated for 3 years for Flower Mound High School in Dallas, Texas, competing both locally and nationally in LD and Extemp. Harshita qualified to Extemp TOC her sophomore and junior year and went to TFA State all 3 years, clearing her senior year. Harshita had winning records and reached late out-rounds at various TOC tournaments such as Grapevine, UT, Strake Jesuit, Greenhill, UPenn, and Berkeley, was a semi-finalist in the Hockaday Women’s Round Robin, and helped mentor her younger teammates throughout her senior year. Harshita attends the University of Texas at Austin.

I have been coaching with 3P Speech now since its inception back in 2011. I am proud to say that in that time, I have met some and worked with some of the most talented students this activity has to offer. In that time I've come to learn one very important thing: talent is interwoven with passion. Each student has a story to tell, my job is to help craft that story to best relay a mesage. I have been a head coach at Centennial High School (Bakersfield, CA), as well as assistant to various successful programs (The Harker School, Desert Vista, etc).

My coaching philosophy and coaching style is nuanced and forward. I strive to let every student know that they can achieve any goal, but with the ability to work hard. 

Brenden is the Director of Speech and Debate at Melissa High School. This past year, Brenden was the Assistant Director of Debate at the Delbarton School. At Delbarton, he helped create the middle school debate program and assisted multiple teams in earning silver and gold TOC bids in Public Forum. Before coming to Delbarton, Brenden helped coach parliamentary debate as a graduate debate coach at the University of North Texas. He also helped coach teams to TFA State elims, nationals, UIL State semis, and UIL State finals. Brenden is excited to be at SNFI, and helping students reach their potential!

Allison competed in LD for four years at Ridge High School in New Jersey, where she won the NCFL National Championship and the NJ State Championship, received a bid to the Tournament of Champions, and advanced to elimination rounds at every national circuit tournament she attended her senior year. She continued debating with the Yale Debate Association, winning or finaling at several APDA tournaments and twice reaching semifinals of the BP National Championships. She coached LD for Ridge and served as the Yale Debate Association's Membership Director, where she led training for the team's novice class. Allison just graduated from Yale University with a degree in Philosophy, and will be returning to Yale Law School in the fall. 

Max Dovala is a rising senior at Yale University, where he has been active in both American Parliamentary and British Parliamentary debate. Max is a three-time finalist at national championship tournaments:  twice at the British Parliamentary National Championships (USU) in 2011 and 2012, and once at the American Parliamentary (APDA) Championships in 2011, where he and his partner became the only team of sophomores ever to reach the final round. Other highlights of his parliamentary debate career include 2nd place at the 2011 Harvard Debating Championships (APDA), 3rd place at the 2012 North American Championships, and ranking 6th out of more than 350 teams at the 2012 World Debate Championships. In addition to his debate experience, Max also worked as a coach for the parliamentary debate team at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. This will be Max’s first year working at the Stanford National Forensic Institute. He looks forward to returning to Yale this fall, where he will begin his 8th and final year of competitive debate.

Stephen Durosaiye is a rising junior at George Mason University. Apart from being a part of the outstanding student body at Mason, he is also a proud member of the Mason Forensics Team. In High School, he was awarded multiple national awards and saw various final stages doing DUO and HI. In college, Stephen and his partner were awarded first place in DUO interpretation at last year's AFA. Stephen is an alumni of Bronx Preparatory and a former student of Rosie and Lou in High School. He hopes to become an actor in the future and wishes to use this camp as a learning experience. Lastly, Stephen was a SNFI camper as a high school student and is beyond excited to be working at Stanford's Camp this summer!

Alisha Eastep is an educator and performer with two decades of public speaking experience in a variety of forums, from the classroom to the podium to the stage. Alisha has been captivated by performance since her first exposure at the age of seven, and knows first-hand the importance of strong adult mentors and educators.

Alisha has competed on the national level both individually and in groups, earning accolades in the speech and debate community, in “The Citizen and the Constitution” Competition, and has had numerous roles in community theater and on the stage. In policy debate, she is a national champion, winning Junior Western Nationals in 2004 and placing second in community college national in 2005. She is a published writer and researcher with 16 years of experience, and has earned faculty recognition for her honors research project on a theater community at UC Berkeley in 2011, where she earned her undergraduate degree in Rhetoric and Anthropology.

As an educator, Alisha has been nurturing the minds of children of all ages and developmental abilities for a decade, and listens to each of her pupils to get a sense of their individual needs. As opportunities to educate occur inside and outside of the classroom, Alisha has gained valuable knowledge teaching educational curriculum, empowering social and living skills, and workplace training. During the year, Alisha teaches debate at Head-Royce School, where the team earned 9th place in the Tournament of Champions, and does research in East Asian Archaeology and on Foodways in the Pacific Rim. She is ready to put these skills to work creating engaged and thought-provoking activities that foster growth and improve young minds at SNFI.

Clayton Engelby is currently a graduate assistant for the Missouri State Debate Team. He is pursuing his Master’s in Communications and later plans on attending law school to study international trade law. He competed for Missouri State as an undergrad and qualified to the National Debate Tournament (NDT) his third year. He also qualified to the National Forensics Association National Championship all three years, and contributed to Missouri State’s national title in 2019. He is also a policy debate coach at Truman High School. There, he has coached multiple teams to TOC out rounds and national championships including NSDA, Dowling, Isidore Newman, NDCA, and the CFL national championship.

I graduated from Winsor High School's engineering program in 2016, having competed for the Windsor Debate Team for three years. I saw a decent amount of competitive success in Parliamentary debate, not so much in Public Forum or Extemporaneous speaking. After high school, I took up coaching Parli at Windsor, which I will continue to make the time to do because I absolutely love teaching and helping students become confident speakers. My greatest passions in debate are colorful intros and foreign policy/military intervention.

I'm an Economics major at my local junior college with a flair for American history and statistics. Alongside my dream of becoming a teacher, I hope I am able to pursue coaching debate for the forseeable future. Presently, I work for the Sonoma County Water Agency, which allows me to get up-close and personal with our local waterways while also giving me a healthy wariness of government. I also get paid to head the California branch of a political organization I am affiliated with, and the frequent trips to D.C. the job affords make my history buff self very hapy.

In my free time, you can find me at a local car show or in my garage, tinkering with my '69 El Camino. ~

Michael is a senior at Georgetown University where he majors in Philosophy and Government. His high school speech and debate career comprised of competing in LD and Original Advocacy at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, CA. During his time there, he qualified to State in both events and went to the 2014 NSDA Nationals in LD and was the school's LD captain in his final year. He broke at most major tournaments which he attended, and was the top LD speaker at the 2013 Golden Desert tournament. 

Chris Fielder, a SNFI 2009 alumnus, has been involved in competitive high school and collegiate forensics for the past ten years. He presently coaches individual events at Cornell University, where he is pursuing a master's degree in Industrial and Labor Relations. During Chris' high school debate career in Kansas City, Missouri, he qualified twice for the NCFL national tournament and twice for NSDA Nationals in Public Forum. In college, he qualified a total of 17 entries to the National Individual Events Tournament for Seton Hall University. Chris much prefers coaching to competing. His students at Ridge, Palos Verdes Peninsula, and Delbarton have collectively achieved: 4 NCFL quarterfinals, 2 semifinals, and 2 finals; 8 NSDA National qualifiers, 8 NSDA Nationals elimination round appearances, and 2 Top 14 finishes; three Tournament of Champions elimination round teams, including a finalist; and, countless late elimination rounds at national circuit tournaments. Chris is also a rabid baseball fan and poker player. Students should talk to him about those things.

Ryan debated for four years at the Meadows School in Las Vegas. He attended the TOC 3 times and was top speaker at St. Marks and Golden Desert, was a semi-finalist at Berkeley, and won the NDCA national championship. He currently coaches The Harker school and coached a student from his alma mater to the octofinals of the TOC.

Daniel Foltz will be a freshman business student at Babson College in Massaschusetts where he plans on establishing a parliamentary team to continue his competitive career in college. He was a four-year parliamentary debater at Palos Verdes Peninsula HS, where he learned both traditional and progressive styles of parliamentary. Over his four years of competing, he won the Oxford Debates(twice), the Fullerton Invitational, and the Cypress College Invitational. He also reached semifinals at the Parliamentary Tournament of Champions, the Jack Howe Invitational, and  the La Costa Winter Classic. He spent four months ranked #1 nationally in his junior year and ended his senior year as the NSDA's #3 individual, along with receiving awards for 1st speaker at Jack Howe and Oxford and 5th place speaker in Worlds Debate at the National Championships. As a SNFI alumnus, he is ecstatic to be returning as a coach and hopes to share all that he's learned over the years with all campers. 

Saloni Gangal is a graduate of St. Francis High School and currently attends the University of California, San Diego. During her four years of public forum debate, she amassed 8 bids to the Tournament of Champions along with numerous speaker awards. She advanced to the elimination rounds of several national tournaments, appearing in the octofinals of the 2012 Tournament of Champions and winning the 2011 Harker Tournament, the 2013 Arizona State University Invitational, and the 2013 College Preparatory School Round Robin. Since high school, she has coached at several debate camps around the country, and she hopes to help debaters reach their full potential.

Currently studying philosophy and computer science at the University of Utah, Oliver graduated from Lone Peak High School in Highland Utah where he competed in Lincoln Douglas debate. His senior year, he qualified to the TOC as well as NFL nationals where he placed in the top 25.

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Christina started debating in 2009 for Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California. During her four years of debate, Christina competed extensively in Congressional Debate, Parliamentary Debate, and Impromptu Speaking. She was a two-time national finalist in Congressional Debate (Senate) placing 4th in 2012 and 2nd in 2013. Additionally, she was top speaker and champion the TOC for Parliamentary Debate in 2012, and won the California State Championship for Impromptu Speaking in 2013. She currently is the head coach of extemporaneous and impromptu speaking at Palo Alto High School. Christina is a rising sophomore at Stanford University, and is the President of the Stanford Debate Society.

Will debated for 4 years with Harvard-Westlake School in California and graduated in 2014. Throughout his debate career Will competed on the national circuit, clearing at Brophy, Golden Desert, Blake (twice), CPS, Berkeley (twice), Loyola, and the Voices Invitational.  Will is currently pursuing a BA in Economics and Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Cayman Giordano was a Public Forum lab leader at SNFI from 2009-2018 and the division director of Public Forum from 2016-2018.

Elsa is currently a debater at Georgetown University and a student in their School of Foreign Service.  Prior to Georgetown, Elsa debated for the College Preparatory School in Oakland, CA.  In 2013, she was the Top Speaker and Semi-finalist at the National Forensic League National Championship, Third Speaker and Octafinalist at the Tournament of Champions, and Champion of the Golden Desert Tournament.  In 2012, Elsa and her partner were finalists at the 2012 National Forensic League National Championship.  In addition, to these successes Elsa has cleared and/or received a top 10 speaker award at every major national tournament she's attended.  She is an alumnus of the Sophomore Scholars program at SNFI and this will be her second summer as an instructor.

Kelly Glass has worked with students in middle school through college to improve their public speaking and debate skills. She has taught at The Harker School, Gavilan College, and San Jose State. She has a bachelor and master's degree in Communication Studies from San Jose State. This is her second summer teaching at SNFI. 

Hi, I'm Erin! I've been coaching middle school speech and debate for the past two years, with a focus on debate events and platform/limited prep events. I competed in high school speech and debate, and I'm currently on the college speech team at Arizona State University. I love the forensics community and helping students find their voice!

Sukhi Gulati debated at Governor Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, Maryland. She consistently received speaker awards and cleared at national tournaments her senior year. She was in finals of the Capitol Classic and won the Lakeland Invitational, as well receiving the top speaker award. She has chosen to continue her debate career at Stanford University. This past season, she and her partner were the first policy team from Stanford to qualify for the National Debate Tournament (NDT) in 20 years. Sukhi and her partner also cleared at the NDT as the 22nd seed. She will be a sophomore at Stanford in the fall.

Victoria Gurrola is a First Grade teacher in Oakland, CA.  Victoria competed as a policy debater for four years at Claremont High School.  Victoria Graduated from Mills College in 2014 with her BA in Political, Legal and Economic Analysis, and in 2015 with a Masters in Public Policy.  After graduating, Victoria taught for two years as a Teach for America corps member. This is Victoria's fourth year at SNFI.

Jeremy Gutner is a junior at the George Washington University, where he is majoring in International Affairs with concentrations in Latin American Studies and International Politics. He is minoring in Spanish. In his free time, Jeremy manages the GW chapter of his fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, as the Social Chair and an Executive Board member.

Jeremy competed in Congressional Debate and Extemporaneous Speaking from his sophomore to senior year of high school. Jeremy has earned numerous debate accolades such as winning the Harvard National Congress in 2013 as well as placing 3rd at the Tournament of Champions that year and 8th at NSDA Nationals. He was also tremendously successful at the state level, earning 2nd and 4th in consecutive years at the Florida State Championships in Congress. He has been a district champion in both Congressional Debate and Extemporaneous Speaking.

Jeremy has also been a successful coach, having worked for Walt Whitman High School in the 2013-14 school year and has coached at different debate camps every summer since graduating, helping to produce national finalists and champions across the nation. He can't wait to produce even more at Stanford.

Jon has competed in debate for ten years and coached for two. While competing for North Hollywood High School he qualified for the TOC in Public Forum and Congressional Debate and made elimination rounds in both Lincoln Douglas and Congressional Debate at both the California State Championship and the NFL National Tournament. Jon went to college at the University of Chicago, and during his fourth year he became the highest ranked individual UChicago APDA debater in recorded history (a record he hopes will soon be broken). While competing in British Parliamentary Debate he was the 2014 North American Universities Debating Champion as well as a two-time Hart House IV Finalist, a two-time USUDC Semifinalist, a Cambridge IV Semifinalist, and a Yale IV Semifinalist. 

Jon has been coaching high school debate in California for two years, during which he has coached students to elimination rounds at the California State Tournament in both public forum and parliamentary debate as well as coaching a student to late elimination rounds in Lincoln Douglas at the 2016 NSDA National Championship. He is excited to be teaching at SNFI, even though it will take him away from his four year old shar-pei labrador mixes, in part because his best friend and fellow 2014 North American Champion Krikor will be teaching as well. 

Danielle Hahami is thrilled to be coaching at SNFI this summer! As a rising senior and captain of the George Mason University forensics team, Danielle remembers she first fell in love with the activity at a speech camp back in high school. She will forever be grateful for the guidance she received then, and can only hope to ignite that same passion for speech in her students this year. As a competitor, Danielle competes in Interp and Public Address and has advanced to national out rounds in all of her events, earning her several titles including the New York State Champion in Oral Interpretation and the 2016 NSDA National Champion in Poetry Interpretation. Danielle can’t wait to meet her newest campers and is beyond ready to make this summer the most wonderfully speech-filled summer ever! 

This is Tosh's third year at SNFI. He competed for the PUC Schools in Southern California. He has ranked at both the State and National Championships in DUO, HUMOR and STORYTELLING. He currently lives in New York City where he is an actor and a rising stand-up comic. He was just seen starring on the NY stage in, "FOOLS IN LOVE" and can be seen in the feature film, "SHAKESPEARE HIGH", Executive Produced by Kevin Spacey. As a stand-up, he has worked with Dane Cook, Paul Rodriguez, Paul Mooney, Tony Rock, Tim Allen, Tom Arnold and Bob Saget.For more info, please like his FACEBOOK page and visit: www.shakespearehigh.org or www.openhydrant.org

Jeff Hannan is the Director of Speech and Debate at Evanston Township HS in Illinois. He won the 2000 NSDA National Championship in Congressional Debate (House) and coached the 2012 NSDA National Champion in Congressional Debate (Senate). 

As an instructor at the Florida Forensic Institute for the last fifteen years, Jeff has taught and learned from the very best Congressional Debate competitors in the nation. Many national Congressional Debate conventions got their start at FFI, where Jeff and others have played an instrumental role in the development of the event. His experience there helped him to author Introduction to Public Forum and Congressional Debate.  

Jeff's broad experience as a competitor and coach (oratory, extemp, LD, PF, Parli, and Policy) and his extensive experience in Congressional Debate (he's coached Congress camps in five states) enable him to help every student find their voice in this activity.

Also, he has no professional-looking headshots, but enjoy this gem of a profile picture.

Shawn Haq is a sophomore at Moorpark College. In high school, he was the California State Champion in Congressional Debate by the largest margin in state history and was elected Student Body President of the National Speech and Debate Association's 120,000 students. He also ranked 8th at the Tournament of Champions, 7th at the National Championship, and championed the Stanford University Invitational.

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Jontae’ Henry has been involved in debate for six years. She has participated as a policy debater at San Francisco State University for two years and at Lionel Wilson for four years. For the past two years, Jontae’ has been coaching public form and policy debate at Bay Area Urban Debate League (BAUDL). Where she has gained the opportunity to work with many different students in middle and high school. Overall Jontae’ enjoys giving back to the debate community and helping students finds their voice.

John Hines is the Assistant Director of Debate at The College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. John has built a solid reputation for innovative argument design and commitment to excellence in instruction during two decades of involvement in high school and college debate. As a college debater at The University of North Texas he reached late elimination rounds of every major tournament including Finals of Harvard in 2000. He also competed at the prestigious Dartmouth and Kentucky Round Robins, reached out-rounds of both CEDA and the NDT multiple times, and was a First-Round at Large Bid recipient to the NDT. John has coached teams into late out-rounds of nearly every major high school and college tournament including Finals of the Tournament of Champions in 2002 and the Finals of CEDA Nationals in 2004. Since John’s arrival on the California high school debate scene 4 years ago, his teams at College Prep have either won or reached the final round of every major TOC bid tournament on the West Coast. In addition to his competitive accolades, John has distinguished himself as an outstanding classroom instructor, he was awarded the prestigious Fund for Teacher’s & Marcus Foster Education Fund Fellowship, and he has participated in field study in China as a sponsored guest of the Chinese Ministry of Education and the US Department of State.

Christie Ho is a 2013 Presentation High School graduate. During her four years at Presentation (2009-2013), she competed in both Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum Debate and debated in both events on the local and national circuit. She's been in elimination rounds at several invitational tournaments all throughout her debate career. She currently attends Columbia University and is pursuing a BS in bio-medical engineering.

Tim Hogan attended Apple Valley High School from 2000-2004. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2008 with a BA in Political Science and Cultural Studies. As a competitor Tim was the runner-up at the TOC his senior year, and a quarter-finalist his junior year. Tim has coached students to late outrounds or championships at a variety of invitationals including Greenhill, Valley, St. Marks, Blake, Emory, Glenbrooks, Stanford, Berkeley, CPS, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Harker, Logan, Santa Clara, and the Golden Desert. He has coached students to success at the MBA, Greenhill, and Iowa Round Robins. In post-season tournaments his students have also excelled. At the 2009 MN State tournament 3 of his students were in outrounds: a quarterfinalist, semi-finalist, and the eventual champion. He also coached the champion of the 2008 and 2009 TOC and a quarterfinalist of the 2006 TOC.

Katie Hughes debated for four years for Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. She debated on the local, state, and national circuits, earning bids at Harvard Westlake, Alta, and Golden Desert her senior year. She cleared at all but one of the invitationals she attended her senior year and was in finals of Harvard Westlake. Katie attended the Lexington, Cal Berkeley, and Battle for Los Angeles Round Robins and qualified to State 3 years in a row and Nationals twice. She ended her career as 3rd at Nationals. She currently attends Stanford University and debates with the SDS team.

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Jane Irons is a junior at Yale University where she is majoring in philosophy. She has debated for two years on the APDA circuit. In high school, she did LD, parliamentary, and world schools debate and was on the U.S. National Debate Team.

Matea has been debating for eight years, and will be coaching for the University of North Texas in the fall. She has received her BS in political science, with a minor in women's studies. She was a a 3 time NDT participant, the 11th speaker at the 2012 Harvard tournament, a Quarter-finalist at 2013 Kathyrn Klassic at USC-Fullerton, 1st Speaker and winner of the 2013 Jesuit Invitational and the Bob Mukhai Classic. 

Viveka competed for Lynbrook High School, where she was LD captain, from 2009-2012. She reached elimination rounds at Apple Valley, Harker, Berkeley, Stanford, CPS, among others, particpated in the CPS Round Robin, and received a bid to the TOC her senior year at the Cal invitational. This will be her 5th summer teachign debate camp. She currently studies rhetoric at UC Berkeley. 

Malik is a recent graduate of Brown University, where he studied Public Policy and competed on Brown's Parliamentary Debate team for four years.  During his Senior Year, Malik was the second-ranked Speaker of the Year ("SOTY") on the APDA circuit and served as the President of the Brown Debating Union during the third consecutive year of Brown being the 2nd ranked College of the Year ("COTY").  In the fall Malik will be working full-time in New York in addition to coaching the Brown Debating Union.

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Sheridan Johnson is the speech coach for Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico.  She has been lucky enough to spend five years working with the students there, and she loves it!  She is a graduate of St. Andrews University in Scotland and an award winning stage actress.  Currently she produces a television show for Open Source Comedy Network called "The NM Inquisition."  She's coached mutliple national finalists, including finalists in Original Oratory, HI, and Prose.  Most of all, Sheridan looks forward to working with all of you!

I was born and raised in Tempe, Arizona, attended Brophy College Prep in Phoenix, and am now a rising senior at Arizona State University. In high school I competed in Extemp and Lincoln-Douglas Debate (and dabbled in Congress), and now coach for both the Brophy high school team and the Phoenix Country Day School middle school team. I love coaching and the kids always come first, except Sunday nights when Game of Thrones is on. 

The 2017 National Speech & Debate Assiociation Middle School Coach of the Year, Ryan had been part of speech and debate for over 20 years as a middle school, high school and college competitor and coach, an instructor at camps such as Interprod, FFI, GMIF, and UTNIF, a coach with various nationally recognized programs across the country (Logan High School, CA, Stuyvesant High School, NY and Holy Ghost Prep, PA), and as the Director of Forensics at Phoenix Country Day School, AZ for the past 7 years. A former 3-time high school national finalist himself (Duo/OO), Ryan has had the privilege of working with and learning from some of the most interesting middle and high school students from a variety of backgrounds - culminating in over 35 national finalist and 4 NSDA High School National Champions and 17 NSDA Middle School National Champions.  Over the past 4 years, Phoenix Country Day School has been awarded a School of Excellence in Speech at NSDA High School Nationals and the Overall School of Excellence for Speech & Debate at the NSDA Middle School National Tournament. However, the accolades are not why we do this "sport," rather it is the moments of contemplation, the passionate researching, the character development, the voice coming to life, and the personal and meaningful message being delivered that continue to inspire Ryan - the students make speech and debate what it is!  While building his program at Phoenix Country Day, Ryan also serves as the PCDS Director of Advancement in charge of school fundraising.

Jae Jung is currently studying Economics with a concentration in urban economics at UC Berkeley.

Donghun is currently a student at Carnegie Mellon University.  Donghun participated in public speaking clubs and groups for about 5 years, primarily competing in Extemporaneous Speaking and Parliamentary Debate in high school.  He is excited to teach students debate at camp this summer!

Kathryn Kao is a 6th grade English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher in Redwood City, CA.  Before moving to California, she was the assistant director of debate at Harrison High School in New York. She was a highly competitive policy and Lincoln-Douglas debater at Lexington High School in Massachusetts, and has coached Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debate for over a decade. Her students have consistently reached late elimination rounds at regional and national tourmanents. Ms. Kao holds a BA in Ancient History from Brandeis University, and a master's degree from the Bank Street College of Education. She is particularly well known for her success with beginning debaters.

Lyubov Kapko is a rising sophomore at Wellesley College. In high school, Lyubov competed for Tempe Preparatory Academy in Arizona competing primarily on Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, Congressional Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate. She won a number of championships in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu speaking throughout her career. In addition, Lyubov placed 3rd in International Extemporaneous speaking at NSDA Nationals in 2013 and quarterfinaled in both Extemp and Impromptu in 2014. In her spare time, she enjoys leafing through the Economist and running.

Gia has been a part of the NSDA community since her freshman year of high school, accruing over 100 titles at the local, state, and national level in both speech and debate. In high school, Gia received 2nd place at CHSSA State in Impromptu, placed top 10 in CHSSA Parli, and Semi-Finaled at NSDA in Impromptu Speaking. In colleet, Gia competed in WUDC debate, where as a freshman she semi-finaled at USUDC Nationals. In 2015 she was ranked 15th at the Worlds Universities Debating Championships in Malaysia, and was the first female in her University's 100-year debate history to be named Debater of the Year. She currently teaches Parliamentary and Public Forum debate at the Nueva School in San Mateo. 

Rachel is going into her sophomore year at Colorado College where she is studying political science and economics. In high school, Rachel debated for The Head-Royce school where she was competitive on the national circuit, reaching elimination rounds at a number of tournaments. She was captain of the Head-Royce debate team during her senior year of high school and she enjoyed teaching the novice debaters on the team.

Maya Kaul debated locally and nationally for Presentation High School for four years. She competed in the elimination rounds in several invitational tournaments her between her junior and senior years and was a semi-finalist at the Crestian Invitational. She also competed in the Voices and Hockaday Round Robins her senior year. She will be attending Pomona College in the fall and will coach for Presentation.

Jack is a rising sophomore at Yale University, where he competes in both American annd British Parliamentary Debate for the Yale Debate Association. Jack also serves as the Assistant Tournament Director in charge of concessions for the Yale Invitational, a high-school tournament hosted annually in September for over 1,000 competitors.  Before college, Jack competed in Public Forum Debate in Massachusetts, where he was also involved in coaching novice debaters on his team.  Having just finished his own novice year of college debate --  a time full of learning from amazing coaches, elder debaters on my team, and from competing nearly every weekend -- Jack is thrilled to share what he's learned about parliamentary debate with others! 

Alex Kennedy competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate for four years at The College Preparatory School (Oakland, CA). She competed on the local and national circuits, qualifying twice to the Tournament of Champions. Alex is currently a student at Stanford University and coaches LD at Palo Alto High School. 

Michelle Keohane debated for Apple Valley High School for four years and graduated in 2009.  As a sophomore, she placed 6th at NFL Nationals, and as a senior she qualified for the TOC, finished in the top 12 at nationals, and was the Minnesota State Champion.  Since graduating, Michelle has worked at various summer institutes, including SNFI, the Victory Briefs Institute, and the Institute for Debate Education in Minnesota.  She is a rising senior at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, MI, pursuing a BA in history.

Liya Khan attended SNFI in 2012 and graduated in 2015 from Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, California, and headed their Public Forum team for two years. As a sophomore she finished in the top 32 at the California State Championship, and broke at all the national tournaments she competed at that year, including the Stanford and Berkeley Invitationals. She was a semifinalist at the 2015 La Costa Canyon Winter Classic Invitational, an octafinalist at the Golden Desert Invitational, and was fourth Varsity PF Speaker at the Stanford Invitational.  She has competed at the California Round Robin and received a total of three bids to the Tournament of Champions. At the 2015 NSDA National Tournament in Dallas, Liya finished in Second Place in PF. This past year she coached the first ever Dougherty Valley team to qualify to the Tournament of Champions, helping them earn three bids, and plans to help coach for Coleyville Heritage High School next year. She is a Public Policy major at the University of Chicago and competes for the Chicago Debate Society in American Parliamentary Debate.

James has been involved as a debater, coach and judge in the American and International debate communities for over 12 years. After graduating with degrees in philosophy from Seattle University (B.A.) and Loyola Marymount University (M.A.), he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the Loyola Marymount University debate team from 2012-2014, during which time LMU placed in the USUDC finals twice, and won the Oxord IV along with over a dozen other regional and national tournaments. As a competitor, James reached the Grand Finals of the Cambridge IV twice, and was ranked as the top speaking debater from North America at the World University Debating Championship in 2009. James won over 15 tournaments in the APDA, NPDA, US BP formats, as well as the CUSID and IONA circuits, including the Stanford IV, the Claremont National Open, the Cork IV, the UBC IV, and America's Cup. James loves discussing philosophy, and helping debaters become deeper thinkers and more skilled speakers. He is currently a law student at the University of Chicago. 

Kevin Klyman competed in Public Forum for Evanston Township High School in Illinois, and, as a senior, served as co-president of the team. Kevin won Glenbrooks, Middleton, and the Illinois State Championship, finaled at Blake, semifinaled at Harvard and Dowling, quarterfinaled at Apple Valley, and octafinaled at the Tournament of Champions and CFL nationals. He attended SNFI in 2013, and will attend UC Berkeley as a freshman in the fall.

Krikor Kouyoumdjian has been involved in debate for 12 years as both a competitor and a coach. In shigh school he compeded in Congress and Parli at the state champion level as well as winning the Duke Moot Court competition undefeated. Krikor attended Loyola Marymount University and competed in British Parliamentary debate as well as APDA. He attended 5 different national championships, making it to elimination rounds in each one. He has won multiple tournaments at the national and international level, most notably the 2013 Oxford IV and the 2014 North American Championships. 

Krikor has experience coaching and teaching students at every grade level from elementary to high school and has worked as a debate coach at 5 schools in the Los Angeles area. Most recently his 5th and 6th graders from the Center for Early Education won the National Championship title for their age range in the MSPDP.

Kevin competed for 4 years with Torrey Pines High School/Del Mar in San Diego, California, graduating in 2015. He acquired four bids, attended several round robins, and was a top five speaker at multiple national circuit tournaments. As a coach, his students have had success on both local and national circuits, with four qualifying for the TOC this past year, and two breaking to elims. He currently attends the University of Arizona, majoring in Philosophy. 

Sanika Kulkarni debated for Presentation High School for four years on the local and national circuits. She reached elimination rounds at several invitational tournaments, and competed in the Voices and CPS Round Robins as well as the Tournament of Champions her senior year. She will be attending Cornell in the fall and will coach for Presentation. 

Prianka currently attend the University of California, San Diego, and is double majoring in Neuroscience and Political science. Prianka previously attended Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Arizona, and competed all four years of high school in public forum debate, extemporaneous speaking, and congressional debate. Prianka achieved success in all of these events on both the local and national level, was a 2-time state finalist in extemporaneous speaking, and in her senior year  was crowned state champion. Prianka qualified to NSDA nationals in extemporaneous speaking my sophomore year and advanced to top 60 in the country. In congressional debate, she qualified two years in a row to the Tournament of Champions, advanced to the final round of the Harvard Invitational, and was a two-time National Finalist in the Senate, taking 8th and 3rd place at the national tournament. In her free time, Prianka enjoys writing, painting and spending time with the love of her life (her dog).

Mike began his career in the Printing and Marketing industry where he immediately became a noted and featured speaker.  Mike retired from business after owning and operating an independent film studio in Hollywood. Highly-sought after as a speaker, Mike regularly spoke at industry events around the country. Mike continues to consult, speak and present seminars and classes for his industry peers and clients. For the past two years, Mike has been awarded the Alumni Select award for Business Innovation from Arizona State University. Mike currently coaches speech and debate at Nova 42. Mike both teaches competitive debate and speaking, as well as leadership and busines strategy. He shows the students how such rigorous training can pay off in real life situations, as well as accelerate and enhance their career paths and personal relationships.  His students should come prepared to learn, participate, research and engage. Mike and his wife, Jung will be starting a full High School in Pasadena in the Fall as well as opening a Santa Monica branch of their after-school program.

Jordan Lamothe attended The Meadows School between 2006 and 2010 and is currently a student at Washington University in St. Louis. As a debater, he reached the quarterfinals of the TOC his junior and senior years. He currently coaches for Presentation High School and his debaters have reached late outrounds at a variety of national tournaments and octafinals of the TOC.

Eric is the Academic Director for speech and debate at the National Speech and Debate Association of China. In the last two years there, he has helped expand access to english language speech and debate to thousands of new students and hundreds of new schools in dozens of provinces and cities across the People's Republic of China. Eric has helped coach champions in original oratory and public forum debate at every major tournament in mainland China as well as international competitions in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and the United States. Before joining NSDA China, Eric was an assistant policy debate coach at the Stratford Academy and Westminster Schools of Georgia, who respectively won the Baker award for season long excellence and back to back Tournament of Champions. As a debater in college, Eric won the 2010 National Debate tournament as well as prestigious Kentucky invitational and round robin tournaments, where he was also the top individual speaker. 

Beginning as a highly successful high school and college debater, Ryan has been involved in the activity for over ten years, spending the last three as the Director of Forensics at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, CA. He has coached debaters to a myriad of accomplishments, including late outrounds at the California State Tournament, NFL Nationals, and the Tournament of Champions. He has extensive experience coaching debaters for both the "local" and "national" circuits and draws on experience in multiple debate events in order to take a well-rounded approach to both coaching and camp instruction.

Jurrien is currently studying environmental science in college, where he competed in debate and model UN. In high school, he competed in Congress, Parliamentary Debate, and Extemp during his four years, reaching outrounds at multiple tournaments on the local and national circuit, such as ASU, Berkeley, Emory, and Stanford. Jurrien also put his debate experiences to use as a member of his mock trial team in high school, and as a volunteer with multiple congressional campaigns. He currently serves as an assistant debate coach at Leland High School, and also as a hired debate judge. This is his third summer with SNFI.

Miranda Le attended SNFI as a student in 2012. She came back to teach Public Forum debate in 2014.She has been an instructor for the past 5 workshops as well as an instructor at the Harvard Debate Council's Summer Workshop in 2016. During her high school debate career, she was invited to and attended multiple round robins including the California Round Robin, the Holy Cross Round Robin, and the Millard North Round Robin. Miranda was the first female to win a championship for her high school. She has been coaching Middle School and High School Public Forum debate since her senior year. Her debaters have accrued numerous top speaker awards at state and national level tournaments while also advancing to late elimination and final rounds. Her students have secured champsionships at various tournaments including the Middle School National Champions in 2014, the CA Middle School State Tournament Co-Champions in 2016, the Tournament of Champions finalists in 2016, Tournament of Champions Double-Octofinalists in 2018, and more. Miranda has coached at Mission San Jose High School and the Holy Cross School in New Orleans. She is the Public Forum Debate Coach at Presentation High School in San Jose. 

Kimberly Lee is a current undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, studying Corporate Communications. She is on the Texas Speech Team in college, and has reached multiple outrounds at NFA and AFA, and is a finalist at HFO and AFA. In high school, Kimberly championed NSDA in DI, as well as championing UKTOC, Princeton, Yale, Bronx, and Glenbrooks several times throughout her career in POI and DI. She is also a 3x Harvard-finalist in DI as well. Kimberly is incredibly excited to join the Stanford staff!

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Tim Lewis is the Head Coach and Director of Debate at Hebron High School in Carrollton, TX. Tim is a scholar-practitioner of cultural studies and critical theory. Tim debated for Damien High School in La Verne, CA where he was in no fewer than five TOC bid rounds. Tim has been an assistant coach at Damien High School where Tim's students recieved a total of 6 TOC bids across the last three years (five in Policy and one in LD). Tim's teams have notably won the University of Washington Championship, been in the finals of Long Beach and The Meadows tournaments, were semi-finalists at Alta, and been recognized by the University of Michigan's National Coaches poll as recieving votes for being a Top 25-Team among other succeses.

Tim has a BA from Occidental College in Critical Theory and Social Justice and an MA from the University of La Verne in Social Justice in Higher Education Administration. Additionally, Tim was the long-term Managing Editor of Critical Theory and Social Justice: Journal of Undergraduate Research, leading it to become the top publication in its field. Tim has written debate blog posts for Exodus File, funcitoned as the Residence Hall Director for the Northwestern Debate Institute, and is an editor at Surreal Poetics. Tim's academic work focuses on Georges Bataille, post-colonial intervention, transgressive poetry, and identity-in-resistance. 

Sarah Lim founded the policy debate team at Interlake HS in Bellevue, WA where she debated for 3 years, clearing at every national tournament she attended and winning the 2014 Gonzaga tournament. Sarah was the top speaker at Stanford, Gonzaga, and the Washington state championships, 2nd speaker at Berkeley, and 7th speaker at Lexington. She will be attending Northwestern University in the fall, and coaching both Interlake and Whitney Young HS.

Thomas Lloyd coached Public Forum at the Bronx High School of Science -- one of the largest and most successful Public Forum teams in the nation -- for four years. As a debater, Thomas reached the late elimination rounds at most of the nation's strongest invitational tournaments.  His students won the 2013 NDCA championship and reached late elimination rounds like quarterfinals at the Tournament of Champions, semifinals at Emory and Harvard, and finals at The Glenbrooks.  Thomas is a recent graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in Science, Technology, & International Affairs at the School of Foreign Service.

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Terrence debated for Lake Highland Prep for four years where he was a captain his senior year, and where he will continue on as a coach. He qualified for the TOC both his junior and senior years. Over his career he earned nine career bids at Crestian (4th), Emory, Bronx, Mineapple, Dowling (3rd), Sunvite, Berkeley (3rd) and Lexington, which he won. Terrence has been a top three speaker at the Crestian, Valley, Mineapple, Dowling, the Lexington and College Prep Round Robins, Sunvite, Walt Whitman and Emory. He was invited to participate in the Dowling, Bronx, Vassar, Lexington, Sunvite, College Prep, and Walt Whitman round robins, and won the Crestian Round Robin. Terrence will be pursuing degrees in Philosophy and Political Science as a University Fellow at the University of Alabama.

I am a sophomore at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida where I study theatre and environemental science. I competed for Braddock High School in Miami, Florida. I had a very successful speech career - winning the Princeton tournament and the Blue Key Tournament in Dramatic Interpretation. I also placed 3rd at the Tournament of Champions. I reached elimination rounds at Emory University, Cypress Bay, Berkeley, the Sunvitational and the NSDA National Tournament. For two continuous years I have been an Interprod Interp coach in Boston, Massachusetts. I have a rich understanding and passsion for performing and working with others. I cannot wait to see what the future has in store. 

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Mark Mabie has been a follower, competitor, and instructor of speech and debate for most of his memorable life. Even before ever competing in high school, Mark had been immersed in the world of speech and debate by proxy of his brother and parents. Since graduating from James Logan High School in 2014, Mark has been teaching Circuit Parliamentary and Public Forum debate, as well as Impromptu speech and recently Lincoln Douglas at various schools and debate programs.  Mark is currently working at and fostering the success of students at The Nueva School, and Basis independent Silicon Valley, and as well as middle schoolers through The Goldenstate Academy. His coaching season of 2016/2017 has lead students to winning results in multiple various debate events at invitational, state, national and the TOC level, and hopefully securing the middle school state championship for the 3rd year in a row.

Patrick brings debate experience in Lincoln-Douglas (for Strake Jesuit, in TX) and college policy debate (for Stanford). As a LD competitor in high school he amassed over 10 TOC bids, broke at the TOC as a junior, was the Greenhill champion, and as a senior reached late outrounds at every tournament he attended -- all of which occurred during the period that policy-style argumentation was popularized in the activity. He also attended NFL Nationals three times, once placing in the top 50 teams in Public Forum debate his freshman year. As an instructor, he also coached (in different years) third and second place finishers in Lincoln-Douglas at the Texas Forensic Association state tournament; and he brings experience from multiple camps on both the East and West coast. As a college competitor his freshman year with the Stanford team debating with Ben Picozi, they reached the break round at CEDA and missed NDT qualification by one round.

Urvashi Malhotra is a fourth year Political Science major at the University of California, Berkeley. An alumni of Saint Francis High School in the Bay Area, she was an avid Original Oratory competitor, consistently placing in the top ranks of her league. The season after she graduated SNFI, Urvashi placed third in the Coast Forensic League and made finals at both the James Logan and Cal Golden Bear Invitationals. After training extensively at the Lyceum for Oratory in Boston under prior National Forensics League champions, she captained her high school Speech team and mentored several students to compete and place at the local, state, and national levels. Urvashi has taught summer Speech camps for middle school students interested in NFL events. She has also competed with the Saint Francis and Berkeley Mock Trial teams for the past 6 years, winning high ranks for her Closing Arguments. She is very humbled to give back to the institution that helped propel her Oratory career, and she is excited to help you all excel next season!

Lizzette Marrero just completed her undergraduate career at the University of Texas at Austin, obtaining her degrees in Government and International Relations with a minor in Latin American Studies.  Lizzette is continuing her education at George Washington University in the fall. She has been a Historian on the University of Texas Speech team for the 2014-2015 season. Lizzette is a two time national champion in Duo interpretation and has had multiple out-rounds appearances in After Dinner Speaking and Poetry interpretation. Before entering college she attended high school in Fort Worth, where she was a TFA state runner up in Congress. She is excited to work with the students at SNFI!

Shivani Mathur debated for four years at Oakwood High School in California. She founded her debate team, and debated at local tournaments as well as the national circuit. She qualified to state and nationals during her junior and senior years, and will be attending UC Berkeley in the Spring.

Shawn Matson is the incoming Director of Speech & Debate at Presentation High School in California, holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is a former Jewish community non-profit professional. For six years, he was the head coach at Whitefish Bay HS in Wisconsin and has worked with other teams and students around the country. His students have won state championships and have advanced to late elimination rounds at Glenbrooks, Blake, Stanford, ASU, Harvard, Berkeley, UPenn, Dowling Catholic, NCFL, the TOC, and NSDA nationals.

With student successes in every Speech & Debate event, Shawn has focused on Public Forum, Congress, and Lincoln Douglas for the past 5 years and specializes in research & case position generation, European Union politics, and judge adaptation.

Shawn is a One Diamond coach, a member of the NSDA’s Lincoln Douglas Debate Wording Committee and Southern Wisconsin District Committee, and has served on the Board of Directors for both the Wisconsin Debate Coaches Association as its President, and for the Wisconsin Forensic Coaches Association.

Mikendra is the coach at Clovis East High School, and with more than fifteen years in the field, Mikendra has coached a large number of students to the California State tournament, the TOC for speech (NIETOC) as well as debate, and the NFL national tournament. Additionally, Mikendra coached Chris Colfer, one of the stars of the television show Glee, in various interpretive events. The experience of working of her was so transformative that he nominated her for Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” and also asked her to play a role in his movie, “Struck by Lightening,” adapted from his high school Original Prose and Poetry piece.

Dave is the head debate coach at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa. Dave’s students have reached the highest levels of debate success. Dave has qualified students to the TOC every year since 2000. He has coached students to the Top 10 at NSDA nationals multiple times, and coached the 2017 NSDA national champion in Original Oratory. (Yay!) His students have reached late elimination rounds at every major national tournament, including final round appearances at: Blake, Berkeley, Yale, Valley, Emory, Dowling, and the Minnesota and California state debate tournaments, and tournament championships at: Apple Valley, Stanford, Cedar Rapids Washington, Omaha Westside, the Iowa state debate tournament, St. Mark’s, and the 2007 TOC. Dave also coached a finalist at the 2010 TOC.

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Christopher Medina is the Director of Forensics at Wiley College, made famous by the 2007 movie, The Great Debaters, starring Denzel Washington.  Medina has over 25 years of experience in the world of forensics; having served 14 of those years as a Director of Forensics on both the high school and collegiate levels. Mr. Medina began his forensics career as a high school competitor, at San Gabriel High School, in California. Upon graduation, he immediately began coaching and was named Assistant Director of Forensics at Alhambra High School. It was in this position, at age 19, that Medina coached his first, of several, national champions.

After ten years of service as Director of Forensics for numerous high school programs around California, Medina was named Director of Forensics at the University of La Verne in California. During his tenure at La Verne, Medina's students advanced to the finals of the World University Debate Championships in Sydney, Australia; this was only the second American team to advance to the Grand Finals.  In addition to over 100 national finalists, at both the high school and collegiate levels; Medina has had NSDA champions in Congressional Debate and International Extemp, as well as forty collegiate national and world champions.

Russell Michelson got hooked on debate when he joined his high school team. He participated in varsity Lincoln-Douglas and speech events all four years. In college, he developed a love for teaching during his four years at the university's Speaking Center. There, he tutored hundreds of students on effective presentation skills, created and gave workshops, and led a staff of other tutors. He continued his debate career in college, and in his free time, judged debate and public speaking competitions. Also in college, he honed his ability to think on his feet by joining the school's improv troupe and performing stand-up comedy regularly. After graduating, Russell became a senior instructor at Harvard Debate Council for a summer. He has a bachelor of arts degree in communication from the University of Mary Washington.

Ethan began his speech and debate career at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California in 2010, where he specialized in Congressional Debate and International Extemp. Ethan finished his senior year as a two-time finalist in Congress at the CHSSA State Championship (2nd and 4th), as well as ranking as the 7th place Senator at the NSDA/NFL National Championship and the Congress Champion of the 2014 UC Berkeley Invitational. In addition, Ethan was the 2014 International Extemp San Francisco Bay District Champion, and placed 10th and within the top 60 at the 2013 UC Berkeley Invitational and 2013 NSDA/NFL National Championship respectively in International Extemp. Ethan is currently a Freshman at the University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor, where he is pursuing a double major in Political Science and International Studies.

Sebastian Miller is a rising Sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, who plans to major in history. He competed in parliamentary debate for Windsor High School all four years of his high school career, and taught at the Windsor Debate Institute for three years during the summer. His competitive successes include winning the 2012 UOP invitational, placing 5^th at the 2015 State Championship, and being ranked as the top parliamentary debater by the National Speech and Debate Association for the 2014-2015 debate season. Additionally, during his senior year, he reached quarterfinals or better at every invitational he attended, including the Long Beach Invitational, the UOP Invitational, the Colt Classic, the Wolf Pack Invitational, the MLK Invitational, the Stanford Invitational, the 2015 Tournament of Champions, and the 2015 California State Championship, while also winning top speaker at MLK. He currently debates for Berkeley’s APDA debate team, and had competative successes at the University of Chicago Invitational (3rd place novice team and 5th place speaker) and the Stanford APDA Invitational (4th place novice team and 6th place speaker).

Danielle is a recent graduate from Stanford University, where she majored in philosophy and was the president of the Stanford Debate Sociey! During her time on SDS, she was a Worlds Quarterfinalist, Yale IV Finalist, and Cambridge IV semi-finalist in British Parliamentary Debate. In high school, she was the Oregon Parliamentary Debate state champion and a state semifinalist in Lincoln Douglas Debate. She has coached LD and PF at Palo Alto High School and the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League, and is excited to coach parli (her favorite format of debate) at SNFI! 

Paul is a sophomore at Stanford studying Symbolic Systems. He competed in LD in high school, is a current member of the Stanford Debate Society, and serves as an LD coach at Palo Alto High School.

Caitlin is a rising Junior at the George Washington University. She is a Political Science major with a double minor in History and Psychology. She did LD debate for 4 years in high school, qualifying to the Oregon State Championship twice and to the NFL National Tournament as a Junior. She was captain of her debate team at Lake Oswego High School her junior and senior year and was also the LD coach for her team. In addition to competing on her local circuit, Caitlin has participated in tournaments across the west coast. She has been to SNFI two times and been a part of both the two week core camp and the intensive third week. In addition to being a SNFI camp alumni, she has returned for the past two summers as a counselor.

Karina was the Director of Middle School Forensics at The Harker School in San Jose, California for six years.  Under Karina's leadership the team was recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association as an Overall School of Excellence  for five consecutive years. In addition, her students were the 2011 Lincoln Douglas National Champions, 2012 Congressional Debate National Champions, 2013 Public Forum National Champions, 2013 Congressional Debate National Champions, 2014 Policy Debate National Champions, 2014 Original Oratory National Champion and won multiple state championships in both speech and debate. Karina is a Diamond Coach with the National Speech & Debate Association and her team was recognized by President Obama in 2015. She helped found the California Middle School Speech and Debate State Tournament and helped increase the number of Bay Area tournaments offered to middle school students. She currently works for Stanford Online High School as the Director of Student Life and Community and sponsors their debate club. Her BA is in Political Science and Public Relations, MA in Communication and she is completing her Doctorate of Education.

John Morgan is an up and coming coach in California, currently working with Palo Alto High School and 3P Speech. In 2013, he was a state finalist in National Extemp, and since then has helped other students acheive their own goals on both the state and national level in Extemp, Impromptu, and Original Oratory. He currently serves as the Parliamentary Debate Captain of Stanford Debate Society, where he competed his freshman year and placed in the top four novice teams in North America.

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My name is Miles Morton and I’m currently a freshman at Western Kentucky University, studying political science on a forensics scholarship. After transferring to VIP (Valley International Preparatory) High School I fell in love with speech and debate. Specializing in spontaneous speaking events (Impromptu and Extemporaneous Speaking) I was fortunate enough to appear in the 2019 NSDA final round of United States Extemp, and to win their Impromptu national championship the year before. 

Competing predominantly in limited preparation events has allowed me to truly understand the intricacies that go into successful spontaneous speaking. I’m excited to share my methods, experiences, and look forward to helping create the next generation of spontanous speaking champions.

Michael Murray is an educator and coach with over 13 years of speech and debate experience. This will be Michael's third year coaching at the Stanford National Forensics Institute. Michael spent 9 years as a high school and college competitor and is going into his 7^th year of coaching.  Michael competed for De La Salle High School (Concord Ca), Diablo Valley College (Pleasant Hill, Ca) and California State University of Long Beach (Long Beach, Ca). He graduated CSU Long Beach in 2014 with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Political Science with a focus in Global Studies. Michael primarily competed in parliamentary debate, impromptu, and extemporaneous speaking, but has competed in almost all other speech and debate events.  Michael has held a variety of coaching positions at different schools and forensics academies. Michael was Assistant Director and later the Director for Forensics at Oxford Academy High School (Cypress Ca), Director of Forensics at Cypress High School (Cypress, Ca) and Director of Debate at Honor Academy (Cerritos, Ca). Michael currently works for Nova 42 Academy as the head Lincoln Douglas debate coach.  Michael has coached many students who qualified to multiple prestigious tournaments including the NSDA Championship, The Tournament of Champions, and the Californian High School State Championship.  Some of the students Michael has coached won prestigious awards at these tournaments including, California Championship Top 15 in National Extemporaneous Speaking ( 2014), NSDA Congressional Debate Champion and 4^th place finisher ( 2015,2016), Tournament of Champions Semifinalist in Congressional Debate (2016) , NSDA Middle School Extemporaneous Debate Champion (2017). NSDA Middle School Lincoln Douglas Debate 2 Double Octofinalists, 1 Octofinalist and 4th, 6th, and 10th place speakers (2019). 

Lily is a sophomore at George Washington University pursuing a double-major in political science and philosophy. As captain of her high school speech and debate team, Lily competed nationally, finishing in the final rounds of tournaments such as Yale, Berkeley, ASU, TOC, and NSDA. Competing for Westridge School in CA, Lily finished top 30 in CA for parliamentary debate, 12 in CA for POI, and top 30 in the nation for DUO and IMP. She eventually completed her high school career, ranking top 50th in the nation overall. 

Having competed in nearly every speech event, Lily is thrilled to share her skills with students equally as passionate about forensics. She is looking forward to working at SNFI!

Todd Newkirk is excited to return to SNFI this year. Todd coached San Dieguito Academy Speech and Debate from 2007-2011, where he was previously a competitor. Todd coached SDA to their first bids in both Policy and LD along with outround success at CSU Fullerton, Gonzaga, Stanford and the California State Championships. Todd has been the Director of Debate at Lynbrook High School since 2012, where he qualified 2 LD debaters to TOC

Toni Nielson has been a member of the debate community for 23 years, a college speech and debate coach for 12 years, served as  as the executive director at the Bay Area Urban Debate League a diverse high school and middle school program, and is currently an Assistant Professor and Forensics Coach at Fullerton College. Toni has significant experience in Individual Events (Impromptu, Extemp, Original Oratory, Original Advocacy, Informative/Expository), Student Congress, and Debate (Team/Policy, Public Forum, LD, Parliamentary, World’s). Her teams have been the recipients of numerous awards including accommodations from the City of Garden Grove, the City of Oakland, and the California House of Representatives. She is a Galentine Award recipient for excellence in coaching and is featured in the debate documentary “Resolved”.  Known as the “Coach of Coaches”, Toni’s educational stance is largely based on an existentialist pedagogy where hands on application is the most effective means of learning debate. 

Mariah is currently entering her 7th year of competitive speech and debate. She debated for four years at Analy High School and two years in college. She is currently attending UC Berkeley and will continue to debate there for two more years. She mostly competes in Parliamentary debate but also has performed in persuasive and after dinner speaking as well as Lincoln Douglas debate. Mariah worked as the assistant debate coach at Analy High School for the past two years and has judged many high school tournaments.  In college debate, she took a gold metal at the state tournament two years in a row and a gold metal at the national tournament two years in a row. She has been tournament champion at three large 4 year tournaments and is currently ranked as the number 43 team in the nation along with Jakob Christensen. 

My name is Carlos Ochoa and I am a rising junior at American University in D.C. studying Communication, Law, Economics, and Government (CLEG). I was born in Moses Lake, Washington state; however, I've lived nearly my entire life in Phoenix, Arizona. I competed in Congress throughtout my high school career and I can honestly say it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. From competing in Harvard finals, to Glenbrooks finals, TOC, Nationals four years in a row, multiple local and regional tournaments, I had the pleasure and honor of growing as an individual and competitor. Now, on top of my college studies, I coach students of my own in Congress and regularly help coach at debate camps whenever possible. I am a sports fanatic, avid conversationalist, weightlifter, philosophy enthusiast, and everything in between! Looking forward to a great camp!

Eric is the Speech and Debate Coordinator for Niles Township High Schools and Teacher and Debate Coach at Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois. This is his second year teaching at the Stanford National Forensic Institute. In only two years as a reestablished program, Niles West has reached the finals of tournaments such as Junior Varsity Glenbrooks, Novice Illinois State and Novice Ohio Valley. Niles West has also won the Novice division of four tournaments including Thomas Kelly, Iowa City West and the Lane Tech Warrior Open twice.  This year Niles West were Novice State Champions, Novice Midwest Champions and Quarterfinalists at 1st/2nd Year Nationals, and in JV were Semifinalists of State, Semifinalists of the Midwest Championships and were Finalists at 1st/2nd Year Nationals.

Eric was an Assistant Debate Coach at New Trier Township High School in Winnekta, Illinois for nine years, and also debated at New Trier. During high school, Eric advanced to the late elimination rounds or won tournaments such as Berkeley, MBA, Ohio Valley, Greenhill, USC, and Georgetown. Eric also received numerous speaker awards throughout his time debating at New Trier.

Martin is in his second year coaching at Wake while he finishes his Master degree program and is a three-time qualifier to the NDT. He was top speaker and semi-finalist of the 2008 National Debate Tournament (NDT) and Cress Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Nationals, in addition to clearing at virtually ever major national tournament he's attended including Georgia State, Kentucky, Harvard, Wake Forest, both legs of the California Swing, Northwestern and was the top seed at Kentucky in 2006. He also has received top ten speaker awards at University of Southern California, Fullerton, University of Texas at Dallas, Georgia State, Wake Forest, and Kentucky, where he was awarded Top Speaker in 2007. Martin has previously worked at Kansas University Jayhawk Debate Institute, University of Missouri Kansas City Debate Institute, Missouri State Debate Institute, the Spartan Debate Institute and the University of Michigan 7 Week program.

Dr. Sydney Pasquinelli is the Director of Debate and a professor of argument and communication at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan. She has been involved in competitive policy debate for over 15 years, serving as a coach for Groves High School, Wake Forest University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Oklahoma, Stanford University, Edgemont High School before she recently ended up as Director at Wayne State University (her alma mater). Sydney has expanded her coaching experience in the last couple years to become more involved in Lincoln Douglas debate as well. Her philosophy towards debate emphasizes openness to and engagement with all arguments and styles of argument.

Neeshi Patadia participated in speech and debate as a student at Saint Francis High School from 2009 until she graduated in 2013. She has experience in both Original Oratory and Public Forum debate. 

Les Phillips teaches speech and debate at The Nueva School.  Les also directed debate at James Logan High School, and was director of forensics at Lexington High School (MA) for more than twenty years.  Les has coached TOC, NFL and NCFL national champions and top speakers in policy and Lincoln-Douglas debate, and his public forum teams have qualified for the Tournament of Champions reached elimination rounds at major national invitationals. He has worked at more than twenty-five summer workshops (including Dartmouth, Texas, and Northwestern, as well as Stanford), is a six diamond NFL coach (an honor attained by less than 1% of all coaches), and served as a member of the NFL National Council during Public Forum's formative years. He has coached all styles of high school and collegiate debate, and has written and published two books and a number of articles on forensics.  His breadth and depth of experience make him an ideal director for our public forum workshop.

Miriam is a recent graduate of Swarthmore College, where she studied political science and economics. At Swarthmore, she served as President of the Peaslee Debate Society and competed in both American Parliamentary (APDA) and British Parliamentary Debate. Miriam won the APDA Nation Championship tournament her junior year, and during her senior year Miriam was the top ranked individual APDA debater in the country ("Speaker of the Year") and part of the top ranked team in the country ("Team of the Year"). Miriam is currently conducting research on the LGBT rights movement, and will also coach the Yale Debate Association in the fall. 

Rocio is a Middle School Forensics Instructor/Coach in Los Angeles and the Co-President of the Speech and Debate team at Glendale Community College.

Natalie is the Director of Forensics at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York. With a wide range of experience in the activity, she has overseen the growth of Packer’s first-ever Speech & Debate Team to include 14 active competitors in only its second year of existence. Her students were co-champions in Varsity Public Forum, finalists and quarterfinalists in Junior Varsity Public Forum, and octafinalists in Novice Public Forum at the 2019 Westchester Classic, earning a total of five speaker awards. In addition to qualifying for this year’s Tournament of Champions and NCFL Grand Nationals, her students advanced to elimination rounds at Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, and Bronx Science. Natalie represented student interests as a member of the NSDA’s Public Forum Ad Hoc Committee, which was tasked with evaluating a number of proposed changes to the event, and currently serves on the Public Forum Wording Committee. She looks forward to spending another summer at SNFI!

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James Qian coaches speech and debate at Brophy College Preparatory and Phoenix Country Day School in Phoenix, Arizona. James has coached competitors to deep elimination rounds at NSDA nationals in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu, including the national runner up in Middle School Extemp in 2016. As a competitor for Arizona State University, James was the 2015 AFA college national champion in Impromptu speaking, and placed 3rd in Extemp at NFA nationals, completing his career with 3 finals in Extemp and 3 finals in Impromptu. He has also reached national elimination rounds in Persuasive Speaking, After Dinner, Informative, and Rhetorical Criticism. In High School, James competed for Tempe Preparatory Academy, where he reached NSDA outrounds in International Extemp and Congress, and won state championships in Public Forum and Extemp. He also qualified multiple events to the TOC and accumulated more than 2300 NFL points. James has previously been a staff member at UTNIF and GMIF, and is very excited to continue working at SNFI.

Dr. Shanara Reid-Brinkley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also serves as the Director of Debate for the William Pitt Debating Union. Dr. Reid-Brinkley teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses that cover critical theories, rhetoric of public policy and advocacy, social identity theory, with a specialization in African American history, theory, and culture. She is a national award winner for her published work on critical theory, black feminist theory, gender, and hip hop culture. Her dissertation work, completed at the University of Georgia, engaged in an in-depth analysis of non-traditional debate practices. Students in high school and college have cited Dr. Reid-Brinkley’s work in debate competition and she has become a recognized scholar in this field of research. Dr. Reid-Brinkley was a nationally successful debater in the mid-1990’s from the debate powerhouse at Emory University.

Arel is a rising junior on the University of Texas, where he is majoring in Finance and competing on the UT Speech Team. During his freshman year, Arel advanced to national final rounds in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu speaking, placing as national runner-up in Extemp. This was followed by two final round apperences in Extemporaneous speaking during his sophomore year. In high school, Arel was the two time United States Extemp NFL/NSDA National Champion, a four-time state champion in his home state of Oklahoma, and the champion of multiple nationally renowned tournaments such as St. Mark’s and Harvard. Arel is excited to be returning for his second year at SNFI. 

Claudia debated at Katy Taylor High School in LD and is a student at the University of Texas at Austin where she is majoring in International Relations and Global Studies. Claudia competed locally and nationally, having success on both circuits. She qualified for the TFA State tournament, NSDA Nationals twice in World Schools debate where she reached to quarterfinals her junior year, and competed in outrounds of many circuit tournaments. Claudia has experience coaching high school debaters in CX and LD. Her debaters have cleared at numerous national circuit tournaments, round robins, NSDA Nationals, TFA, and accumulate bids to TOC in LD and CX. 

Jake Riggs is an incoming junior at the University of La Verne, where he will return for his second year of international debate. In 2014 Jake received the speech and debate scholarship at the University of La Verne and competed in the seasons at tournaments like Oxford, World’s hosted in Malaysia, and tournaments across the US and Europe. Jake and his partner Gia Karouzis, another of the PF summer instructors, are ranked in the top 100 debaters for their event worldwide. Jake also debated four years in high school, and became the debate team captain his sophomore year. Jake competed, made finals, and won tournaments throughout California after making the transition to public Forum his senior year. Jake will be happily returning to and eagerly awaiting the SNFI public forum camp.

Nick Robinson has over a decade of debate experience as a coach and competitor in LD, public forum, and parliamentary formats. He coached the Whitman College parliamentary debate team from 2009 to 2011, winning two NPDA season sweepstakes championships. In 2011, Whitman placed first or second at 10 different tournaments, qualified a record six teams to the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence and placed three teams in the top 10. As a competitor at Willamette University, he won 17 major speaking awards and finished his career ranked fourth in the country. In the fall, he will pursue a masters degree in political communication. He enjoys basketball, Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, and travelling.

John Rosenberg is a popular assistant Speech coach, helping strengthen speech programs across the nation since graduating from UC Berkeley.  His students have won numerous state and national awards in Interpretative Events.  John is also a noted playwright and director who runs Hella Fresh Theater, an independent theater company devoted to producing new works. He has written and produced award-winning plays that have won rave reviews in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

With combined winning experience of over 40 years, Sarah Rosenberg and Luis Cardenas have coached students to hundreds of final rounds across the country. Their students have won DUO at CFL Nationals and have tied for 1st in DUO at NFL Nationals twice. They have had over 30 National Finalists at both CFL and NFL and have won countless State Championships in California, New York, Philadelphia and Florida. Current projects center on The Festival of New American Musicals and Future Fest, working with composers such as Stephen Schwartz, Jeff Marx, Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Sondheim. NYC credits include the Off-Broadway musicals Fools in Love and Tempest Toss'd, one a doo-wop re imagining of A Midsummer Nights Dream and the other, a re imagining of The Tempest.  Both are designed to  make watching Shakepeare a family event and have won rave reviews in major newspapers across the country. These musicals have also been showcased at BAM, The New York Musical Theater Festival, El Portal, Theatre Row in Hollywood, and The Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, CO. Their work also can be seen in the new film, Shakespeare High Executive Produced by Kevin Spacey, which premiered at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and will premiere on Showtime this fall. Rosie/Lou have coached for Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science, Florida Forensic Institute, Bronx Prep, Holy Ghost Prep, San Marino High School, Cleveland High School, James Logan and The PUC Schools. For more info visit: www.shakespearehigh.org.  www.lafestival.org.

Zach Rosenthal debated at The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas for four years. He qualified to the TOC as a sophomore, was an octofinalist as a junior, and a semifinalist as a senior. Zach will be a freshman at Stanford University in the fall. 

Bailey is the former LD coach at Ridge HS (NJ), and assisted with policy. Bailey’s students placed highly at tournaments throughout the northeast, won multiple consecutive New Jersey state championships, attended the Tournament of Champions, and participated in deep out rounds at NSDA and NCFL including a 3rd place finish at each. Bailey competed in NFA-LD at Western Kentucky University, where he closed out the final rounds of the 2017 NFA and 2018 PKD national tournaments in addition to placing in several national final rounds of Extemp and Impromptu. Before that, he competed successfully at Blaine HS (MN) in Extemp and Congress, among other events. Bailey has focused primarily on debating simulated policy-making and continental philosophy while competing and coaching. Bailey graduated from WKU with B.A. in Communication Studies in May 2019 and will be staying there to pursue his M.A. in Social Responsibility & Sustainable Communities. He will also be the graduate assistant for WKU's debate team. In his free time, Bailey enjoys reading Hegel and watching old Science Fiction movies.

Brittany Russo just graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a major in English and a minor in Spanish. Brittany competed in Public Forum debate all four years at Green Valley High School in Las Vegas, NV, and served as captain of the Public Forum debate team. In high school, she excelled in numerous events and achieved accolades spanning local and national titles including 7th at NFL Nationals in 2007, top 40 Nationals 2008, Berkeley Invitational Champion 2008, two-time Nevada State Champion, and a participant in 1st Annual PF Challenge. Since high school, she has worked with high school students in Public Forum and aided them in their debate aspirations. This is Brittany's third summer at SNFI working with Public Forum debaters. 

Sam Safari is an incoming freshman at Columbia University. He was an adamant competitor in speech and debate placing 3rd at the California State Championship in Oratorical Interpretation, 5th at the Yale invitational in Dramatic Interpretation, double finaling both the University of Pacific invitational and the Santa Clara University invitational, championing the former in Original Oratory. He has qualified for and competed in the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions for OO and DI, and the TOC for Parliamentary Debate. He has also competed at the NSDA National Championship in both OO and DI. He is excited to bring his love for speech and debate to the Stanford National Forensic Institute!

Phil Samuels is currently a debate coach for the University of Kansas and assistant coach for College Prep in Oakland, CA. Phil previously worked as the Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Minnesota. Phil has coached successful teams at Minnesota including qualifying teams to the NDT. At the University of Kansas Phil coached the 2008 CEDA Nationals finalist team, the 2009 NDT Champion team, and the 2012 NDT Quarterfinalists and 5th place team in the Copeland Award race. Phil has decades of experience in debate and has worked at numerous camps throughout his long career including Michigan State, Gonzaga, and Kansas. 

Joey competed on the national circuit in congressional and Lincoln-Douglas debate for three years at Evanston Township High School in Illinois. Joey qualified to the TOC twice; in congress as a junior and in Lincoln-Douglas as a senior. He also won the Illinois State tournament (twice), the NCFL Grand National Tournament, and the NSDA National Tournament (in Extemporaneous Debate). Joey is currently a sophmore studying international affairs at the George Washington University. He is an assistant coach at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, VA and competes in parliamentary debate for GW on the American Parliamentary Debate Association circuit. 

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Zoe graduated from Academic Magnet High School (SC) in 2013 where she was the captain of her team and competed in public forum. During her senior year she advanced to semifinals at the Blake tournament, octofinals of Blue Key, qualified to the Tournament of Champions, won the South Carolina District tournament, placed 2nd at the SC state tournament and finally finished 7th at NFL nationals. She is now a rising junior at Bates College in Maine where she studies English and women's and gender studies. In college, she competes in parliamentary debate, where she was a semifinalist at the 2015 national championship and advanced to elimination rounds at the Worlds University Debating Championship in 2015.

Daniel Selman debated for 4 years at Vestavia Hills High School in Alabama. He debated on the local circuit for his first three years, and debated on the national circuit his senior year. He received 2 bids his senior year, winning Isadore Newman and reaching semi’s of Emory, ending his career with a winning record at the TOC. He also cleared at almost every national circuit tournament he attended his senior year. He will be attending the University of Alabama where he plans to study Political Science.

Laith debated for four years at Leland High School in San Jose, California. He qualified to the California State Tournament three years in a row, in both Lincoln-Douglas Debate and International Extemp, reaching outrounds each time. He has also reached elimination rounds at several debate invitationals, including the Martin Luther King Invitational, and is the defending co-champion of the Jon Schamber Invitational. Laith capped off his career by winning the 2013 NFL National championship in LD debate. He will be attending American University in the fall.

I have been competing in forensics for over six years. I competed for four years in high school and two years in college. Though my primary focus has always been parliamentary debate, I have won awards in Lincoln-Douglas, extemporaneous, and impromptu. I was ranked the #1 Community College parliamentary debater in May 2016. I coached debate at my former high school and will continue coaching debate in Los Angeles this year. 

Alina is a junior at Loyola University Chicago. As a Public Forum competitor for Colleyville Heritage HS, she was a three time qualifier to the Texas Forensics Association State Tournament and the National Speech and Debate Association Tournament where she advanced to elimination rounds numerous times. She competed nationally and reached late elimination rounds at tournaments including the University of Texas, the Grapevine Classic, the Hockaday Invitational, Apple Valley, and the Berkeley Invitational. Due to her success, Alina was invited to several Round Robins such as the Berkeley Round Robin and the Kandi King Round Robin. She looks forward to working at SNFI!

A rising sophomore in International Relations and Disease Biology at UC Davis, Anna competed in forensics for four years at Windsor High School, captaining the parliamentary team her senior year. She holds a Degree of Superior Distinction from the National Speech and Debate Honor Society. During her parliamentary debate career, she reached semifinals at four invitationals and won one, also reaching finals for extemporaneous speaking at the University of the Pacific's Jon Schamber Invitational. Having judged at SNFI for the past two years, Anna is a returning member of the family of debaters who make this camp possible. 

Dylan Slinger coaches at San Marino High School and works with his alma mater, Lakeville South and privately in the Philadelphia area. His students have made it to the final rounds of the Minnesota and Pennsylvania state tournaments, to the NFL and NCFL National Tournament, Berkeley semifinals and a Harvard quarterfinals. He is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business where he is studying finance and management. As a competitor, Dylan is the only person to ever win the Final Round of NFL Nationals in both Domestic and International Extemp. He was the runner-up in Domestic his junior year and captured the International Extemp Championship his senior year. He is also the back-to-back, two time NCFL national champion and two time Minnesota state champion. Dylan also secured a victory at the Glenbrooks Invitational and appeared in the final round of the George Mason Patriot games and the Tournament of Champions.

Eli most recently coached the winners of the 2018 NDCA National Championship and the TOC in LD Debate. He has coached multiple students to the elimination rounds of the TOC and NDCA in LD. As a college debater, he "United the Crowns" as a member of the first team to win the CEDA and NDT national championships in the same year.  He has experience coacihng PF, LD, CX, and some international debate formats.  He is excited to get to work with you this summer!

Kyla Sommers is the Director of Debate at Woodrow Wilson High School and the assistant coach at George Washington University. She is also pursuing a PhD in history at GW focusing on 20th century American racism. Previously, Kyla debated for GW, qualifying to the NDT in 2013 and breaking at several national tournaments.

Mike is a former SNFI LD student and demonstration round participant. He is also a graduate of University of Chicago and is attending University of Southern California Law School. Throughout his four years of debate, he collected a total of 11 bids to the TOC, finishing in octafinals his senior year at the TOC. During his senior year, he was the champion of Berkeley. As a coach, Mike has qualified students every year to the TOC. More impressive, every year Mike has coached a student into outrounds at the TOC. His students have made three different appearances in the quarterfinals of TOC. Mike returns to SNFI for the fifth time as an instructor this summer.

Bryan St. Amant co-founded Windsor High School’s parliamentary debate program in 2007.  Under his leadership, Windsor has won or reached the final round of parliamentary debate at UOP, James Logan, Claremont, Bishop O’Dowd, Santa Clara Spring, the Windsor Invitational and the California State Championship.  Five Windsor parliamentary debaters have finished in the top-10 in of the NSDA's national ranking, including the 1st & 2nd ranked parli debaters in the nation.  Bryan's unique perspective on persuasion and argumentation draws from his distinguished career as a marketing executive/CEO in addition to his experience as a national-circuit policy debater -- winning the California State Championship for Damien High School and serving as captain of the UC Berkeley debate team.  Bryan holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, an MS in Management from MIT, and is Founder & CEO of VinterActive LLC.

Natalie Steinbrink is a junior at Arizona State University studying English Literature with minors in Women & Gender Studies and Voice Performance. In her time as a competitor, Natalie competed in several speech events, advancing to outrounds at tournaments like Harvard, Emory, GMU, and NSDA, and ended her career with a state championship and as a semifinalist in Prose at the 2015 NSDA National Tournament. For the past two years, Natalie has coached state and national finalists for Phoenix Country Day School and will be stepping into the role as Assisant Director of Middle School Speech & Debate this coming year. Natalie is extremely excited to work with all the students at Stanford this summer, and can't wait to see what kind of change we can create together.

Clay has been involved in Speech & Debate for over a decade. As a high school debater in Georgia, he competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate, qualifying his senior year to the National Speech & Debate Association's National Championship.  Attending Georgia State University, Clay competed in intercollegiate policy debate for four years, reaching elimination debates at multiple regional competitions, a career that culminated in attending the National Debate Tournament his senior year. As an Instructor at the Stanford National Forensic Institute, he hopes to use his years of experience as a coach and competitor to help students achieve success, and maximize the benefit of the Institute. 

I am a rising junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am a double major in public policy and psychology. I competed in public forum in high school with senior year accomplishments including quarter finals at George Mason and Laird Lewis, qualifying for NFL nationals, and clearing to top 16 at the tournament of champions.

Theja Talla debated for James Logan High School, reaching the elimination rounds at most regional and national tournaments. In the past, he has taught at Logan’s summer academy, teaching a variety of speech and debate events to students of all skill levels. Currently, Theja attends the University of California, Irvine, where has has worked as an assistant to Professor Sameer Ashar of the UC-Irvine Law School. He is also a debate instructor at an up-and-coming middle school academy, Hoyah, which has won numerous awards this past debate season. His energetic, personable teaching style make him a great addition to this summer's Public Forum staff.

Kimberly Tan debated for four years at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California. She was President of her 200-member debate team and competed both in local tournaments and on the national circuit. She reached elimination rounds in almost every tournament she competed in her junior and senior year, was a semi-finalist at the Voices Invitational, and was invited to the Hockaday Round Robin. She is attending Stanford University in the fall.

Christian Tarsney debated for two years at St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota. In his second year, he finished 4-3 at the TOC and placed 7th at NFL Nationals. Since graduating in 2005, he has coached students to final rounds at Emory, Valley, VBT and the Bronx Round Robin as well as championships at the Dowling Catholic Paradigm, Iowa Caucus, Alta Silver & Black, Blake, Stanford, the Stanford Round Robin, Greenhill, the Minneapple and the TOC. He is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Maryland, and coaching for St. Louis Park.

Fargo Tbakhi is a junior at Arizona State University studying theatre. He coaches at McClintock High School and at Phoenix Country Day Middle School, as well as the Southwest Speech and Debate Institute. As a coach, he has helped produce several national champions, finalists, and semi-finalists on the middle school circuit, and Harvard finalists, state champions and national qualifiers on the high school circuit. As a competitor, he was a National finalist in Dramatic Interpretation at the 2015 NSDA Nationals, as well as a Harvard finalist and three time state champion.  

Chris Theis competed in LD for four years for Apple Valley High School in Minnesota, graduating in 2009. As a competitor he was a semi finalist at Greenhill and the Glenbrooks, a finalist at Berkley, the champion of Blake and Emory, and twice participated in the demonstration round of the Montgomery Bell Academy Round Robin. He was also the two-time winner of the Iowa Round Robin, Greenhill Round Robin, St. Marks, and the Tournament of Champions.

Chris currently coaches for his alma mater, Apple Valley, and Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in California. As a coach his students have participated in late elimination rounds of nearly every tournament they have attended including: Greenhill, St. Marks, Valley, The Glenbrooks, CPS, USC,  VBT, Harvard and the Minnesota State Tournament.. Multiple students he has coached have reached elimination rounds at the Tournament of Champions and have placed in the top 12 (semi-finals) of the NFL National Tournament.

Norberto is a graduate of Pace University's Business program and coaches at Bronx Prep and Democracy Prep Public Schools in New York. He competed in Speech & Debate in high school, being a finalist at various national invitationals such as Stanford, Columbia, Yale and GMU, holding two State Championships in Duo and Impromptu, taking 2nd in the nation in Dramatic Performance. He has also coached multiple state, CFL and NSDA national finalists in Interp. He is a member of the Actors Equity Association and as a founding member of Open Hydrant Theater Company has performed at the Manhattan Ensemble Theater, The Michael Schimmel Theater, Lincoln Center, 54 Below and the New York International Fringe Festival

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Sam will be a sophomore debater for the University of Texas - Dallas. In high school, Sam debated for Chattahoochee High School before transferring to Glenbrook South. She was an extremely competitive national circuit debater, reaching elimination rounds at many of the tournament she attended along with qualifying for the Tournament of Champions twice. Sam is currently majoring in finance and a UT-Dallas Debate Scholarship recipient.

With two degrees from Stanford University, including a M.A. in Communication, Matt Vassar has spent all of his adult life teaching debate and public speaking. As a coach, he trained winners to some of the largest parliamentary debate invitationals, including the Marty Cronin Invitational, the Martin Luther King Jr. Invitational, and the Santa Clara University Invitational. He has also trained parliamentary teams to the semi-final round of the elite International Tournament of Champions (sponsored by the International Debate Education Association [IDEA]), the semi-final round of the North American Debating Championships, and the semi-final round of the California State Championship. Matt previously served as president of the now-defunct National Parliamentary Debate League, and currently serves as a lecturer under the Technical Communication Program at Stanford's School of Engineering. This is Matt's sixth year at the Stanford National Forensic Institute, and his fourth year serving as the director of the parliamentary debate program.

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Leah Clark Villanueva brings over 8 years of debate experience, including Parliamentary, Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, and Policy Debate. She earned a B.A. in Psychology at CSU Los Angeles.

During college, Leah joined the CSU Fullerton Policy Debate team. She competed and cleared at several national and regional tournaments including finals at SFSU and CSUN. She placed in the Top 50 teams in the country during the 2014-2016 seasons.  

She is currently a speech and debate instructor at Mirman School. During the debate program’s first year, her students competed in deep elimination rounds and won Top Speaker at the California Middle School State Championship in 2017.

In her free time, she enjoys watching movies, binge-watching Netflix shows, writing, and volunteering at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League.

Krish is an incoming sophomore at Carnegie Mellon Univeristy studying statistic and machine learning and is entering his 8th year of parlimentary debating and 5th year of debate coaching. As a highschooler, he finished his senior year as the top ranked parli debater in the nation and won the NPDL-TOC. Cal Lutheran, Santa Clara University, University of Pacific, Cal Parli invitational and the Martin Luther King Invitational are other notable championship performances. 

Alex Wakefield will be entering his second year as an Economics major at Arizona State University this fall, after a year of coaching speech and debate for Phoenix Country Day Middle School and Desert Vista High School. In his first year coaching, he has coached a Middle School Congressional Debate National Champion, a High School Congressional Debate National Finalist in the House, and two Congressional Debate finalists at the Tournament of Champions. As a competitor at Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Arizona, he competed in Congressional Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Extemporaneous Speaking. Through his high school career, he was an Arizona State Champion in Public Forum Debate and two-time Congressional Debate National Finalist, finishing in the top 6 his senior year. That same year, he competed in several final rounds at National level tournaments, including the Tournament of Champions. Outside of debate, Alex loves sports, music, and politics.

David Wang is a recent graduate from George Washington University, where he studied Economics and Philosophy. He debated for four years in high school, finishing his senior year ranked second in California for Parliamentary Debate. At the college level, he competed in the American Parliamentary Debate Association, where, from his sophomore to senior year, he finished as the 6th, 5th, and 2nd team in the country, and the 9th and 7th best speaker. This fall, he plans to attend NYU Law and study public interest law. Now that he's done debating, David spends most of his time getting into Facebook arguments and eating Thai food.

Tommye Weddington is currently a sociology PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh focusing on race and social movements. Formerly an assistant coach with the City University of New York (CUNY) debate program, he has over five years of experience instructing communication and argumentation.

Henry Weikel is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where he was president of the BP and APDA team. He competed mostly in BP, breaking at more than 15 tournaments including the Oxford IV, Cambridge IV, and national championships (USUDC) and winning a number of regional tournaments including the Edinburgh Cup and California Cup. He has judged the finals of numerous tournaments including NPDL-TOC and USUDC in 2019 and coached at Berkeley and three high schools in California.

He will begin graduate studies in English Literature at Oxford or Cambridge in the Fall.

Sterling is from Fort Lauderdale, FL, and she competed in and was very successful throughout high school in speech events, including HI, DI, DUO, POI, PRO, and POE. Sterling has previously served as an Interpretation instructor at Interprod (Summit Debate Institute), and is a rising sophomore at Hillsdale College studying Marketing and Spanish.

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David Weston is a co-director of Speech and Debate at New Trier Township High School just outside of Chicago, Illinois. He is a full time debate educator who has dedicated his career to working with youth involved in the activity. Prior to become a full time head coach at New Trier, David was an Assistant Coach and graduate student earning his teacher certification. In the 2012-2013 season, New Trier students debated in the elimination rounds of most major tournaments. In total New Trier qualified 3 policy teams to the Tournament of Champions this year. Before moving to the Chicago area, David was the Director of Debate and head coach at Cathedral Preparatory School in Erie, Pennsylvania for four years. David debated at the University of Pittsburgh where he made it to the elimination rounds of several tournaments and received a variety speaker awards. In years as Cathedral Prep’s director, the policy debate teams have been in the elimination rounds of almost every national tournament in the country including: Wake Forest’s Early Bird, Georgetown Day School, Bronx High School of Science, St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational, University of Michigan, Ohio Valley Invitational, The Southern Bell Forum at Montgomery Bell Academy, Lexington Winter Invitational, the Grand National Catholic Forensic League Tournament and the National Forensic League National Tournament.  Cathedral Prep’s teams have qualified twice for the Tournament of Champions in David’s four years and have been crowned Pennsylvania’s High School Speech League policy debate state champions (2010) and state runner up (2011). 

Since 1975, Chris has had the pleasure of being involved in speech and/or debate as a contestant, judge &/or coach/teacher. He was an active member of  high school, (Shawnee Mission North, KS) and college (Johnson Co CC, Auburn and Kansas State Universities.) speech and debate teams. College coaching experiences at Wake Forest, Arizona and Georgia State Universities helped prepare Chris for his subsequent high school coaching and teaching career at Pace Academy, (Atlanta, GA) and Aspen High School (Aspen, CO). At Pace, Chris had the opportunity of coaching multiple State and National Champions and have been named as the Coach of the Year in three (3) states and the "Outstanding Coach of the Last 50 Years" by the Barkley Forum for High Schools at Emory University. He also enjoyed the pleasure of working with some of the finest talent and individuals ever seen in the activity.  Chris just completed his twenty-third year as a high school classroom teacher, primarily in the areas of social studies and language arts. Additionally, Chris has been a staff member &/or administrator at many high school speech and debate workshops, including  University of Arizona, Bates College, Emory University, Kansas State University and The University of Texas in addition to Urban Debate League workshops in multiple U.S. cities.

Aurelia has debate experience at both the high school and college level, and is also an experienced social and political activist on a local and national level. She brings years of practical and academic knowledge of race and ethnicity issues domestically and internationally. Aurelia is currently a varsity policy debater and is pursuing a degree in global studies at Georgia State. Post-graduation Aurelia is planning on going to law school with a human rights concentration.

Jon Williamson is a former policy debater for Gonzaga and national quarter-finalist in parliamentary debate for Cal State Long Beach who has been coaching since 2006. Jon has been recognized as a diamond coach by the NSDA and is the Assistant Director of Forensics at Nova High School in Florida. Jon has a bachelor's degree in political science from Gonzaga University and a master's degree in political science from California State University, Los Angeles. Jon has coached a state champion in policy debate, a national champion in congressional debate, state finalists in parliamentary debate, and TOC/NSDA Octo-finalists in public forum debate. Jon's public forum debaters have championed tournaments including the California Round Robin, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, the Cypress Bay Round Robin, Cypress Bay, La Costa Canyon, and the Nova Titan,

Megan debated at Yale University for 4 years. She had great success in both American and British Parliamentary styles. In the fall she will start work at Cornerstone Research in New York.

Deborah Witherspoon is a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College with degrees in Theatre & Psychological Science. She was the 2012-2013 California State Champion in Duo Interpretation along with her duo partner, Sarah Dahdouh. She has won 5 National titles in the Duo and Duet catagories (three NIETOC titles, one CFL title and one NFL title.) Deb also has experience with the Dramatic, Humorous, Prose, and Poetry events and is familiar with the other public speaking events. In addition to her many speech titles Deb was a huge part of the Theatre and Dance Department at her college and has been an integral part of most of the main stage plays in her college career. Recently, Deb studied abroad in London, England which gave her new insights to the acting world. She returned with inspired ideas and techniques that she is excited to share with her students and colleagues. Her many accolades and experiences have given her the opportunity to learn from the best and she hopes to return the favor by being a creative, dedicated, and encouraging coach and mentor.

Talia is an incoming senior at UCLA studying bioengineering. She is a second time SNFI instructor, and in high school, she debated for four years, reaching the fifth round in the state championship and the semifinals of the Stanford tournament, finishing her senior year ranked 23rd nationally. She served as co-President of the Berkeley high school debate team for two years, helping to coach, build the program, and hire a program director and coaches.

Samantha is a rising junior at Yale University majoring in Religious Studies. She has been debating in and judging both British and American Parliamentary tournaments for two years. She also served at tournament director for the Osterweis Invitational, a charity tournament for high schoolers in the New Haven area. As Social Chair of the Yale Debate Association, one of her goals is to make debate a great activity for everyone.

Alex Ye is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying astrophysics and mathematics. His interests are primarily academic and research-oriented, though he is passionate about education and is considering teaching alongside research in the future. Although Alex has always been intrigued by the cosmos, the sciences have not always been his focus; he entered university intending to study international relations and economics, inspired by his experiences in high school speech and debate. Having attended both state and national tournaments, Alex looks forward to combining his teaching aspirations with his experience in speech and debate to foster a group of individuals that are empowered by and confident in using their voices.

Tiffany Yuan is a rising sophomore at Johns Hopkins University, studying public health, psychology, and social policy. She competed in Public Forum for Princeton High School for 4 years, serving as PF captain her senior year, and was ranked as high as 6th in the country on Debaterankings. Tiffany qualified to the TOC twice, qualified and broke at NSDA nationals, and competed at NCFLs 2016. She was also a semifinalist at New Jersey states, a quarterfinalist at the Yale Invitational, and won a number of other titles. In college, Tiffany competes on the Johns Hopkins Parliamentary Debate Council (APDA), serving as the tournament director. She was named the 2017 APDA US Novice of the Year, through winning 1st place novice speaker awards at Harvard, American, Brandeis, and George Washington, and other speaker awards at Yale, Georgetown, William and Mary, Williams, and more. She has also cleared to multiple elimination rounds on both the novice and varsity level, and is excited to join the SNFI staff for the first time this summer!

Edwin Zhang recently graduated from Yale University, where he majored in Applied Mathematics and Ethics, Politics, & Economics, and will be working as a consultant at Redstone Strategy Group. He has been involved in debate since his sophomore year of high school, competing primarily in Lincoln-Douglas debate. As a parliamentary debater in college, he broke at the World championship, was a runner-up at the North American championship, and won the US Universities Debating Championship. In his spare time, he enjoys singing and basketball, interests sparked by his favorite movie, High School Musical, which he first watched on January 21st, 2006. His favorite restaurant is Olive Garden, and he recommends the unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks combo.

Jake Ziering was a top-ranked national debater during high school, winning multiple national championships at Glenbrook North, including the 2004 Tournament of Champions, CFL Grand National Tournament, and Semifinalist at the NFL National Tournament.   During Jake's senior year his squad managed to win the Triple Crown of Debate, winning the TOC, CFL & NFL National Tournament.  This is an unprecedented feat matched by very few in history. Following his successful high school career he attended the University of Redlands, where he had some success as a critical and performance debater. His approach to debate emphasizes communication skills and game theories. His dog, Asha, (also pictured) is a prominent scholar of post-coloniality, from whom he borrows many ideas.

Maggie debated for Northland Christian School for 4 years and participated in both speech and debate events locally and nationally. She currently coaches at A&M Consolidated High School where she has helped several students qualify to NSDA Nationals. Although Maggie has experience with a progressive style of debate, she also has experience teaching traditional aspects of the activity and is looking forward to helping students find a style that works for them in whatever level of debate they choose to take part in. She is currently studying Political Science and Communications at Texas A&M.