Organizing Committee:
The UBC Debate Society’s annual tournaments wouldn’t be possible without the time and dedication of our student-led teams. Because this year’s tournament will be hosted entirely online, we thought it would be nice to give participants the chance to put some friendly faces to our names.
We are so looking forward to seeing you at the tournament!!
— The UBC Spring HST 2021 Organizing Committee
TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS:
Alice Jones is a current Master of Public Policy student at the University of Auckland, and was a member of the UBCDS Executive Team during her undergrad. Alice has been using this year to develop and maintain resources for online tournaments, as well as training and mentoring. In addition to running events, Alice has served on several Adjudication Cores (most recently USUDC West) and is among the top 200 university speakers in the world.
As Tournament Director, Alice oversees all behind-the-scenes coordination and planning for this tournament, so you’ve probably been exchanging emails with her already.
Adrian Lask has been heavily involved with competitive debate for nearly ten years. He represented Team Mexico at World Schools in 2015 and has been invited to return as a coach for Team Mexico on several occasions since then. He was on the motions committee for WSDC last year, and has an enormous amount of tabs, judging, and CA experience.
As Logistics Coordinator for UBC Spring, Adrian has been working diligently to set up the platforms for this tournament (including two tabs, two Discord servers, and at least six different Zoom calls) and will be available for all your troubleshooting needs this weekend.
ADJUDICATION CORE:
Pia Co is a member of the University of Alberta Debate Society, and has a strong focus on developing their circuit through coaching junior high and high school students, and mentoring university debaters. In recent years, Pia has broken to the McGoun Western Canadian Parliamentary championships finals three times (twice as a pro-am) and has won Top Speaker and the tournament, as well as been a quarterfinalist at the North American Women and Gender Minorities Debate Championship (NAWDC). Pia primarily focuses on adjudicating, having been on the adjudication core of (almost) every major tournament in Western Canada.
Tawfique Elahi is a currently senior at North South University in Bangladesh. His love for debate has led him to serve on CA teams across FIVE continents. He has broken at numerous major tournaments, including Canadian BP Champs, Harvard WSDC, UPenn WSDC, and the Pan-African University Debate Championship, and been on the Adjudication Core for UBC Pacific Cup, International Economics Open, Calgary CP Pro-Ams, Pretoria Parley Invitationals, and Alternative Pre-ABP. His love for helping schoolers with feedback is best captured by his commitment as a facilitator at Debate Spaces, a Boston-based non-profit education group.
Yuki Zhao is a debater from the University of Western Ontario (UWODS). She competed for three years in the BC Circuit, and is thrilled to be back as a CA for the Junior Divison this year. During high school, Yuki was Champion of the Stanford Public Forum Invitational and SFU Public Forum Invitational in 2019. As a first-year, Yuki was a novice finalist at Hart House IV and a finalist at McMaster Pro-Am. Yuki's main focus is coaching debaters and she has been a coach for four years. Her students' successes include breaking at multiple major Canadian and American tournaments. She has served as Tournament Director, Tab Director, and Chief Adjudicator for multiple high school tournaments across Canada, and she is very excited to meet everyone at UBC Spring!
Anshuman Mishra has been debating and judging throughout different circuits of the world for quite sometime now, and is proud to call Canada his favourite. Anshuman has been an Adj Core member of the International Theology Open 2021, NYUAD IV 2021, Pacific Cup 2021, and Alex Trebek Random Pro-Am 2021. This year, Anshuman has been champion of Uhuru Worlds 2021 (ESL), IIM Indore IV 2021, SBS PD 2021 and Rational Wrangle 2020, with a list of other breaks under his belt. Additionally, he has broken as a judge at Harvard College World Schools Debate Invitational 2021, North American Debating Championship 2021 and over 15 Grand-Finals (US Novice Nationals 2021,USC IV 2021, Macquarie IV 2020 etc.) and three Gold Finals.
Ritul Aryan has broken at 10+ tournaments in the past few months, crowned overall champion of ASDC British Parliamentary Debate' 20. He has also judged 30+ online competitions in the same time frame, being top 10 in many of them, including Chancellor's Cup, DMD, Bates Pro-am, RUDF, Loquitur. Talk about commitment! Highlights include breaks and Top 10 Speaker awards at ASDC BPD, IIL APD, Unitalks BPD, JLU APD, IITP APD, and NITP APD. On top of this, and having served on the CA team for UBC’s own Pacific Cup, Ritul finds a rare joy in online debate and his weekdays are reserved for the thing he likes even more than breaking at any tournament: mentoring and cricket.
Hayley Cavitt is a born and raised Alaskan who competed for the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Seawolf Debate Program from 2015-2019. Career highlights include making the varsity WUDC team for both Mexico and Cape Town Worlds; ten top-4 speaker awards; top seed and overall championship at the 2018 Seattle University IV; breaking at at USUDC Denver 2017 and USUDC Clemson 2019, as well as being the top breaking public university team and being the top public school speaker. In addition to coaching and mentoring at the university level, Hayley has been a CA for the 2019 PLU Womxn’s Round Robin, the 2019 and 2020 Seattle University IVs, the 2021 Vanderbilt IV, and Pacific Cup 2021.
DEVELOPMENT SEMINARS:
Tina Yong has been an active member of the BC Debate circuit for a number of years. Not only was Tina the captain and student coach of her High School debate team, she was also the top Senior speaker at LMS regionals in 2020 and overall Champion of UBC Fall HST in 2018. In her first year of University, Tina was a Novice finalist at Hart House IV and crowned overall Champion of Hugill Cup. She has been coaching debate now for more than three years, with her students going on to break at several major Canadian and US tournaments. Tina was Novice Representative for the UBCDS and will serve on the Executive Team in charge of Events & Marketing for the 2021-22 year.
Nicholas Viegas has been actively involved in both Debating and Public Speaking for the last six years. In high school, he won Top Speaker at both the BC Provincial Public Speaking Championships and the BC Debating Provincial Championships. He represented Team Canada twice at the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships, placing Top 10 in the World both times. He has also been active on the University Circuit, breaking to Novice Semi-Finals at Hart House IV, Finals at Fall Open, and Novice Finals at Yale IV. Nicholas has coached in various Debate Camps across the province and has recently been elected as UBCDS Training Director.