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Building a caring online learning community to support students’ critical reading, persuasive speaking , and leadership skills development
Empower students to think critically and act in socially responsible manner
Alexandra Sundarsingh |
Alexandra has a BA in Political Science and an MA in History from the University of Toronto. She is currently pursuing a PhD in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She is a World University Debate Championships (WUDC) quarterfinalist, the champion of the Yale IV, a 2 time finalist at the Cambridge IV and a 2 time quarterfinalist at the Oxford IV as well as reaching elimination rounds in over a dozen other tournaments. She has also been the Chief Adjudicator at the North American Debate Championships and North American Women’s Debate Championships in addition to judging numerous elimination rounds at other events. |
Ashley Pinheiro |
Ashley has many years of experience working with students from ages 7 to 17 in debate, public speaking, improv and poetry. She studied Communications & Political Science at Carleton University. As a debater, Ashley has reached elimination rounds in tournaments across Canada & the US, including as a Finalist at the North American Women’s and Gender Minorities Championship, Leger Central Canadian Championship and Hart House IV. They have been a top 10 speaker at more than half a dozen tournaments and speaking competitions. Ashley worked extensively within the Canadian debate community as an adjudicator on CA teams and as an organizer for both University and high school tournaments. She has chaired out-rounds such as the Canadian Parliamentary Nationals, Lord Dorchester Cup Final & HHIV Novice Final. They are the former President of Carleton Debate and Speech. Ashley's teaching style focuses on helping students develop quick thinking, evidence-based reasoning, and the self-confidence to express their perspective on the world. |
Calvin Xu |
Calvin is an undergraduate student at Northwestern University, currently studying Political Science and Philosophy. Throughout high school, he has broken at Queens High School Debate Championships (Finalist), Harvard World Schools Invitational (Semifinalist), Saskatoon WSDC (Gold Semifinalist), and Stanford Invitational (Semifinalist). Calvin also has extensive experience organizing many high school tournaments, acting as Chief Adjudicator in many of them, and has judged elimination rounds in both BP and WSDC tournaments. |
Chelsea Reutcke |
Dr. Chelsea Reutcke completed her PhD in History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland in 2020, where she focused on British, religious, and book history. Prior to this, she earned a BA with honours in History from Wesleyan University in Connecticut (USA) and a Masters's with honours in History from St Andrews. She has three articles published in academic journals, has spoken at conferences across Europe, and her doctoral thesis is currently being converted into a book. She has worked in historic house museums in the US as an educator and curatorial intern and most recently served as a Research Assistant on a digital humanities project exploring American Civil War monuments. Chelsea has taught a range of courses to students in middle school through undergraduate level, including Early Modern History and History Skills classes. She also runs a series of courses and camps on Model United Nations and has organized a MUN Conference in conjunction with the UN’s 2022 Refugee Challenge, which will take place this August. During her own time as a MUN delegate, she won multiple Outstanding Delegate awards. This fall, she will also be running a History Quiz Bowl class, preparing students to compete in international quiz competitions. |
Chris Leonardi |
Chris Leonardi (BS, Psychology) has been a successful debater and coach at both the high school and college level. Chris won the US Cross-Examination Debate Association National Championship in 2012, and in 2013 made the semi-finals of both CEDA and NDT nationals. Chris has been top speaker at countless tournaments and has coached multiple teams to achieve the same. Chris has achieved national success with small and large programs and believes all students are capable of success through dedication and cooperative research practices. He has demonstrated his techniques at the University of Texas, Binghamton University, and the University of West Georgia. Chris has extensive experience with both office and educational software, and advocates for forward-thinking teaching methods that best enable the accessibility of new concepts and platforms for students of all backgrounds. |
Dylan McCarthy |
Dylan is a final-year undergraduate in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. They won the Grand Final of the European University Debate Championship in 2022, as well as having been a Semi-Finalist at the World University Debate Championship that same year. They were the top speaker and overall winner of Uhuru Worlds 2022, as well as having broken at several other prestigious competitions including the Oxford IV, Cambridge IV, and Yale IV. They are also an accomplished adjudicator, having chaired the Grand Finals of Glasgow WGM, Duke Open, and the Amsterdam Open, as well as having been a member of the Chief Adjudication team for the Aberdeen Open, UCD LawSoc IV, and the Amsterdam Open. |
Eric Kazadi |
Eric is currently a MSc Geography student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a triple major undergraduate honours degree in Geography, International Relations and Political Sciences. He has over a decade’s worth of competitive debating experience, and is a World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) semifinalist, a World University Debating Championships (WUDC) ESL quarterfinalist, a Doxbridge Worlds ESL Finalist and was formerly the Vice President of his university’s debate club, the Wits Debating Union. Eric is also experienced as an adjudicator with judge breaks at WUDC, Cambridge IV and Princeton IV as well as having twice judged the WSDC Grand Final. He has also been a Chief Adjudicator at WSDC, Doxbridge WSDC and the European Schools Debating Championships, amongst others. He now dedicates most of his time to coaching and coaches the South African WSDC team. |
Ethan Curry |
Ethan has been involved with debate for over a decade. He is a two-time Canadian National Champion and has been in the finals of the Hart House IV and the North American Universities Debating Championships. He has won 8 tournaments and made the finals of over 25 additional tournaments. As an adjudicator Ethan has judged a Worlds Semi-Final and elimination rounds at Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, LSE, and the Asian Continental Championships. He was also the CA for the North American Debate Championships. As a coach, Ethan has worked with a wide range of students fostering a passion and care for the art of debating. He has worked with WSDC national teams and many students who have gone on to break at tournaments. |
Fletcher Calcagno |
Fletcher Calcagno holds a BA in Asian Studies with minors in Philosophy and Korean Language and Literature from George Washington University. He debated in high school on the Oregon state debate circuit and in college in the American Parliamentary Debate Association. As a high school debater he competed in both Oregon Parliamentary and Public Forum, qualifying to the Parliamentary Tournament of Champions and finishing in the top 10 at the Oregon state championships in Public Forum. As a college debater he has received speaker awards and competed in out rounds in both novice and open divisions. In addition to competing, he served on the CA team for the 2020 Johns Hopkins Invitational, dabbled in British Parliamentary, and judged out rounds at a number of tournaments. He has coached at the high school level for his former high school, as well as taught public speaking, debate, and English courses. |
Hannah Zhao |
Hannah is a geography and international development student at McGill University. She was the 2021 North American novice champion, and has broken at and received individual speaker awards at numerous debate tournaments such as the North American University Debating Championship (semifinalist), Hart House Intervarsity (quarterfinalist), Womxn and Gender Minorities Open (quarterfinalist), and UBC Open (novice champion). Hannah has organized several high school and university-level tournaments, notably acting as equity officer at the 2021 and 2022 McGill Winter Carnival and chief adjudicator at the 2020 McGill High School British Parliamentary. She has four years of coaching experience in parliamentary debating and public speaking. |
Isaac Hordiyuk |
Isaac has a degree in Politics with minors in History and Geography from the University of Toronto, and is currently studying Law at the University of Oxford. He has reached elimination rounds at over a dozen university tournaments, including the Yale IV, Canadian Parliamentary Nationals, and North American Championships, and has won or received a top speaker prize from more than half a dozen other tournaments. He has more than five years of coaching experience, working with various private and school-run programs in Canada and internationally. |
Jay Namdhari |
Jay Namdhari is a junior at the University of Michigan studying business. He debated in both Public Forum and Lincoln Douglas debate for Plano East high school, accruing 7 total bids for the tournament of champions. He has been teaching debate over the last three years as both the captain of his team as a private coach, resulting in over 15 bids for his direct pupils. He is also the co-founder and chairman of The Debate Group, a nonprofit organization that has organized coaching for over 400 students. |
Kaveri Krishnamoorthy |
Kaveri studies Biology and Public Policy at Dartmouth College. In high school, Kaveri debated in public forum debate for four years, and was a highly competitive and nationally ranked debater. Most notably, she made it to finals at the Harvard Forensics Tournament, was the 2023 MA State Champion, and qualified twice for the Tournament of Champions. She was also a co-captain of her debate team her senior year of high school, coaching over 40 novices. She curated extensive practice curriculums and helped new debaters reach high elimination rounds at many national tournaments. Kaveri specializes in providing individualized attention to each debater, helping them to become confident researchers, analytical thinkers, and public speakers. Kaveri is currently on Dartmouth's Parliamentary debate team where she is excited to continue learning new styles of debate. |
Maria Xu |
Maria is a student at Harvard College, currently studying Neuroscience and Global Health & Health Policy. She has debated in Worlds Schools, BP, and CP: her successes include being a Hart House High Schools champion, a Winter Holidays Open finalist, a UPenn WS finalist, and an Oldham Cup semifinalist. She was a member of Team Canada for two years and the runner-up of the Vietnam WSDC 2023. Maria has also had extensive experience as a coach and high school tournament adjudicator. |
Mars He |
Mars is a Harvard graduate and is a HWS Round Robin Finalist, WUDC top 10 speaker and United States Universities Debate champion. He’s been the President of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, Chief Adjudicator for Harvard and Stanford debate tournaments and is currently coaching the Harvard College Debating Union. |
Rudi Lof |
Rudi is the founder of the Toronto Debate Academy. As a debate coach, Rudi led his students to success at both the provincial and national levels. His student’s success includes becoming finalists at World Schools Debate Championships and winning the Jr. National Championships. |
Sharon Low |
Sharon is currently a masters of global affairs student at the university of Toronto. She has previously participated in, and organized model UN conferences for over 8 years, having been involved in 25+ conferences across 3 different continents. She has coached students for the past 4 years, ranging from helping middle school students learn the basics of Model UN to coaching Concordia University’s MUN team to their first delegate awards. She has previously worked for best delegate in a conference and writing capacity, and is excited to help students gain further understanding and insight into global affairs while improving their public speaking and writing skills. |
Steven Murray |
Dr. Murray holds a BA in economics from Trinity University, an MA in communication from Baylor University and a PhD in Rhetoric from the University of Georgia. Steven was a highly competitive and nationally successful debater in high school and college, including multiple tournament wins, high place finishes in several national championship formats, and too many top speaker awards to count. Dr. Murray has coached high school debate since 2010 and college debate since 2013. His students have shown success at the local, state, and national level, including multiple national championships. Dr. Murray was an early pioneer of digital learning, with over a decade of experience teaching debate online. Dr. Murray privileges argumentative flexibility, on-the-fly thinking, and creative navigation of the debate space. He currently serves as a professor of communication studies at the University of Georgia and SUNY New Paltz. |
Svilen Trifonov |
Dr. Svilen has a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Minnesota. He is currently an instructor of rhetoric and communication studies at the University of Georgia. Svilen has been teaching public speaking for ten years at several colleges and universities across the United States. He has helped students prepare for public speaking competitions and other public events. As a scholar and a teacher, Svilen writes and teaches about citizenship and belonging. His teaching centres around the concept of engaged citizenship in the classroom, helping students overcome speech anxiety, gain confidence and experience in speaking situations, and advocate for socially and politically relevant topics. |
Wajeeh Maaz |
Wajeeh is a law student with a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from King’s College London. Wajeeh is a Hart House IV finalist, a Doxbridge semifinalist, Durham IV champion and top 10 speaker, and has competed in the outrounds of the World University Debate Championships (WUDC), the Yale IV and the Imperial IV. As an adjudicator they have judged outrounds at over thirty tournaments, including the Princeton IV, the Trinity WGM open and the ESL Round Robin. Wajeeh has served on the adjudication core of large regional tournaments including the LSE IV and the JHU Open, and is the current registrar of the European Universities Debating Council. |