LD Faculty and Staff
2025 Staff List
L'Aunjanee Carriere
L'Aunjanee Carriere currently works in digital fundraising, helping progressive candidates win elections. She is passionate about youth literacy and is a former high school debater herself. One of her favorite quotes is "You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world, and you have to do it all the time" by Angela Davis. The urgency in this quote reminds her of the importance of her commitment to constantly challenge the American political landscape while also educating today's youth to believe in themselves and their abilities to effect change.
Isaac Chao
Isaac is a teacher and debate coach in Houston, Texas and has worked as an educator since 2015. As a coach, Isaac runs a full service program and coaches across the spectrum of speech and debate, although he primarily fields teams in LD, PF, and CD. He has spent the past 10 years coaching students who compete through the Houston Urban Debate League and other local and national circuits. Isaac's debate interests include creative disad/counterplan combinations and working through higher-order debate concepts (including critical literature) with students. This will be his 10th summer at TDC and his 6th round as administrator!
Joshua Cheng
Josh debated LD at Dulles High School for 4 years in LD and Policy and is a rising freshman at Rice University. Qualifying to the TFA and accuring a bid to the TOC, he mostly went for the K on both the aff and neg, specifically logistics, Deleuze, empire, settler colonialism, and capitalism. Outside of debate, he enjoys running, reading novels, and listening to R&B. He's excited to get to work with everyone at TDC this summer!
Amanda Ciocca
Amanda holds a dual B.A from Florida State University in Women Studies and Media Communications and she is currently is finishing her Master's Degree in Women Studies. She graduated from West Broward High School in 2019, competing in Lincoln- Douglas. She specializes in critical literature with a focus on feminism, queer theory, Latine/x lit, hauntology, and ecocritical literature. She's had students qualify to the TOC, make it to late elims of tournaments like Strake Jesuit and Harvard, and consistently earn speaker awards. Her non-debate related hobbies include: taking care of her tortoise, watching Studio Ghibli movies, and finding niche literature to hyperfixate on.
Nathaniel Council
Nathaniel Council is president of the Texas Forensic Association, past president of the West Texas Speech Association and a two diamond NSDA coach from Pampa, Texas. He has coached students to elimination rounds in TFA, UIL and NSDA state and national tournaments in a wide variety of events. His major project at the moment is creating a collection of useable frameworks to allow students to have access to various philosophical approaches to strengthen rhetoric and increase the breadth of education in Lincoln Douglas Debate.
Tavia Gabrysch
Tavia Gabrysch was a policy debater in high school for 4 years. Their debate interests include performance and kritikal identity affirmatives. Tavia has a bachelor's degree in English from UT Austin, with dual minors in Pre-Health Professions and Philosophy. This fall, she will be 2L law student at Drexel University's Thomas R. Kline School of Law, where she plans to focus on queer rights law, education law, and disability rights law. Outside of debate, Tavia enjoys Sanderson and Austen novels, videogames, and theatre. This is their fourth year as an administrator at TDC, and she's excited to be back!
Evan Gilbert
Evan was a policy debater in high school at JBS Law Magnet and in college at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is now the Program Director for the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance where he helps students learn Policy, World Schools, and Lincoln Douglas debate.
Anshul Gulati
Anshul competed at McNeil High School in LD for four years, graduating in 2023. They were a flexible debater, reading various policy, kritikal, and theory oriented positions, and qualified to the TOC twice with four career bids. They're currently attending UT Austin for Computer Science and Asian American Studies.
Fahim Jahingir
Fahim is a rising freshman at UT Austin and debated for Jordan High School for four years. He primarily competed in LD, acquiring 3 career bids and advanced to late elimination rounds at various prestigious tournaments across the country. He specializes in the K, being primarily versed on Settler Colonialism, Racial Capitalism, and Cybernetics, while also having supplementary knowledge in philosophical positions such as Hobbes, Kant, and Butler. Outside of debate, he likes to play pickleball and basketball with his friends as well as watch anime.
Nate Kruger
Nate debated for Hunter College High School in Lincoln Douglas for four years before debating policy at Wake Forest University. In high school, Nate qualified to the Tournament of Champions and reached finals of the Ridge Debates. In college, Nate reached the quarterfinals of CEDA as a freshman, co-championed the Wayne State Invitational, and reach finals at the Binghamton University tournament and Mid America Championship. Nate has coached students at Hunter College High School and the Oakwood School in varying formats, and has helped freshmen reach the Tournament of Champions. Nate is currently a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University, where he researches how young people think about and take action against racial and economic inequality. He's thrilled to work at TDC this year!
Miles Kshatriya
Miles Kshatriya competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate for four years at Clear Lake High School, with two career bids reading the K. Miles has also qualified for the TFA tournament four times, getting to octo-finals in his senior year. He has the most circuit experience reading the K on the aff and the neg engaging in critical queer and settler colonial literature. He also has amble experience in traditional debate. Miles is an incoming freshman to the University of Massachusetts Amherst studying microbiology.
Rowan MacLean
Rowan debated on the national circuit for three years for Clear Lake High School. She was her debate team's co-president for two years. Her senior year she acquired five bids to the TOC. She reached finals of UH, and semi-finals of Florida Blue key, Strake, and Delores Taylor. In her debate career, she specialized in philosophy, tricks, and theory. Rowan will be attending the University of Texas at Austin.
Ian Matuszeski
I debated at Millard North High School for four years. Competing two years in Policy debate, and two years in Lincoln Douglas debate. During my career I qualified to Nationals three years. For the last four years I've been coaching high school debate, while I obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Political Science and a minor in Philosophy.
Matthew Matuszeski
Matt debated 2 years at Millard North High School in Omaha Nebraska and after graduating in 2017 debated 1 year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Matt has since coached at Millard North, Lincoln high school and The Bergen Debate Club. While there he has had students qualify to the Tournament of Champions and NSDA Nationals. Matt has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Lindsey McNamara
Lindsey debated for William T. Dwyer high school for 4 years in LD as a lone wolf, graduating in 2017. She also competed for University of Florida’s policy debate team where she also received her bachelors degree in Psychology. Throughout her high school career, Lindsey made it to elim rounds at Yale and Harvard as well as it to bid rounds at Crestian, Blue Key, Emory, and Sunvitational- receiving 1 bid her Senior year. She also qualified for both NSDA and NCFL nationals all 4 years, making it to elim rounds her junior and senior year. Lindsey debated with both traditional and progressive styles focusing on philosophy and K debate. This year is her second year at TDC and she’s excited to teach at TDC this summer!
Kelley Moore
Kelley holds two BAs in Philosophy and in English with a concentration in Writing and Rhetoric and a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from the University of North Texas. She is currently the Debate teacher for New Tech High School at B.F. Darrell in Dallas ISD where she additionally teaches AP Lang.
Eric Schwerdtfeger
Eric Schwerdtfeger is the Director of Debate at Dulles High School, where he also teaches AP Psychology and AP Research. He enjoys coaching and judging all kinds of arguments from central topic controversies to fringe critical theory. His students have found success at the TOC, NSDA Nationals, TFA State, UIL State, and many smaller qualifying tournaments in LD, Policy, and Public Forum. Outside of debate, Eric enjoys reading, exercise, hiking, playing board games, and spending time with his family. This will be his 5th year on staff. He is hoping that you will ask him about counterplan competition, intrinsicness, and negation theory.
Kafi Ummatul
I'm a rising senior at the University of Houston, studying political science and philosophy on the pre-law track. In the past I've debated for CECHS for three years primarily in LD and competed on most circuits. I can be most helpful when it comes to finding/cutting evidence so reach out if you want help prepping for the next topic.
Chloe Wolf
Chloe graduated from American Heritage Broward after competing in LD (and some PF) for 3 years. She qualled to TOC primarily reading philosophy, theory, and k positions. She also reached elimination rounds at NCFL and NSDA, and reached quarterfinals of the FL and NC state tournaments. Her favorite positions include the cap k, death k, determinism nc, and spark. She looks forward to working at TDC this summer!