Desert

Meet The SWSDI Administrators:

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    Adam Symonds

    ()
    Arizona State University
    Staff Bio:
    Director of Forensics at Arizona State University. Extemp and Policy Debate competitor in high school and college. 1999 Cross-Examination Debate Association Nationals Champion. 2013 Val A. Browning Coach of the Year. Proud Papa.
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    Richie Glover

    (He/Him)
    McClintock High School
    Staff Bio:
    Richard "Richie" Glover is an NSDA/NFL 3-diamond coach at McClintock High School in Tempe, and an assistant debate coach at Arizona State University. Richie has served as an advisor, senior lecture fellow, instructor, and board member at SWSDI since its inception. He considers his work with SWSDI over the past 15 years to be one of his greatest accomplishments, and he is proud to be the Associate Director of this camp.
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    Mary Joseph

    (They/Them)
    ASU
    Staff Bio:
    Mary Joseph is the Assistant Director of Forensics at ASU. After 4 years of competing both in speech and debate and achieving a few national rankings, Mary now focuses on encouraging public speaking in the next generations. They served as a coach with the American Debate League in New York as well as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Central Florida, where they obtained their M.A in Communication. While their specialty lies in interpretation events, they also excel in coaching other speech events as well as various formats of debate. Mary is excited to make this year's SWSDI as awesome as possible!

Meet The SWSDI Staff:

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    Maanik Chotalla

    (He/Him)
    Brophy College Prep
    Staff Bio:
    I'm currently entering my eighth year as a coach and twelfth year overall involved in speech and debate, my career highlights include winning state in LD and Original Oratory as well as top 30 placement in LD and top 10 placement in Original Oratory at nationals. Currently a social studies teacher and studying to get my MA in sociology at ASU this upcoming fall. Huge Phoenix Suns fan and probably wearing pajamas this very moment.
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    Zenobia Chevalier

    (She/Her)
    Arizona State University
    Staff Bio:
    -
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    Gerard Grigsby

    (He/Him/G)
    GGA-Gerard Grigsby Academy
    Staff Bio:
    Gerard Grigsby is an experienced and highly decorated Policy Debate coach, having directed competitors on the national circuit for more than 25 years. He has coached multiple generations of successful Championship Debaters over the course of his career, including State and/or National Qualifier Champions in Arizona, Wisconsin, and California. Additionally, his teams have achieved tremendous success, reaching late elimination rounds including semifinals or better in tournaments in California, Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Kentucky, New York and Massachusetts. Gerard’s Debaters have achieved great success including being invited to several prestigious National Round Robin Tournaments, generally reserved for the nation’s top teams including the USC Round Robin, The California-Berkeley Round Robin as well as The Baylor Round Robin and The Harvard Round Robin both of which included Second Place finishes. His teams have won several national tournaments including The New York Championship at The Bronx High School of Science, The University of California at Berkeley, Stanford, UC Fullerton, UC Long Beach Omaha Westside, And The Sophomore Hoe-Down at The St. Mark’s School of Texas. His Teams have also earned Second Place honors at The Harvard Round-Robin, The Baylor Round Robin, New Trier, and The University of Redlands. Gerard has coached several teams to compete at the NSDA Nationals, The National Catholic Forensic League Nationals, and The National Tournament of Champions. Gerard has also previously instructed at 9 debate institutes, including The Stanford National Forensic Institute and the California National Debate Institute at The University of California at Berkeley. He has also worked with The Bay Area Urban Debate League which offers debate training to highly motivated but under resourced student populations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Highlights of his career include being nominated for The Acolyte Award, given to the top high school assistant coach/argument coach in the country.
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    Tim Jiang

    (he/him)
    Brophy
    Staff Bio:
    Timothy debated for four years at Brophy in Arizona and qualified to the TOC 3x. He got 13 career bids, received multiple Round Robin invitations, and notably championed Blake and reached semis at Bronx. As a debater, he primarily read policy arguments but also dabbled in philosophy and kritiks. He's excited to coach at SWSDI!
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    Kristin McMahan

    ()
    Student
    Staff Bio:
    My name is Kristin McMahan and I am currently a junior at Arizona State University- Barrett, gaining a bachelor’s in business law. At ASU I am the President of the speech and Debate Forensics Team. While being a full time student I work at one of the Great Hearts Academies as the Alumni Coordinator and Science Department Teacher’s Assistant. I am also writing a speech and debate curriculum for Great Hearts.
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    Courtney Walsh

    ()
    McMinnville HS
    Staff Bio:
    Courtney is starting her 24th speech and debate coaching season this fall at McMinnville HS in Oregon. She is a 2 diamond NSDA coach, 2018 Oregon Speech and Debate Educator of the Year, 2019 NSDA District Coach of the Year, and has coached 28 individual state Champions over 2 decades. She specializes in interp events, as she holds BS in Theatre/Directing from Oregon State University. She is excited to be a part of the SWSDI family.
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    Kay Karlin

    (They/Them)
    ASU/McClintock High
    Staff Bio:
    Kay is an ASU MLFTC Student studying secondary education and history. They have participated in Speech and Debate for eight years, including six as a competitor and four as a judge and coach. They are excited to be back at the Southwest Speech and Debate Institute for a second summer!
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    Lukas Fantin

    (He/Him)
    Arizona State University
    Staff Bio:
    Student at ASU and is a current member of the ASU forensics team. Has done debate for 4 years and coached for 2 years.
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    Abigail Spencer

    (Any)
    Arizona State University/University of Chicago
    Staff Bio:
    Abigail is a former ASU policy debater and currently coaches for a variety of schools and programs. Abigail especially enjoys working to connect debaters with the resources they need to succeed and works as a community coach for Chicago Debates serving middle and high schools in the Chicago area. Most recently, Abigail was part of the coaching staff that supported the 2024 Tournament of Champions' top speaker in Policy Debate, through the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
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    Agatha Attridge

    (She/Her)
    Arizona State University/Phoenix Country Day School
    Staff Bio:
    Agatha coaches Speech for Arizona State University and Phoenix Country Day School. She studied English Lit in undergrad, and Communication and History in grad school, so she loves good books, bad movies, and history fun facts. She is the former Director of Forensics for California State University, Los Angeles, former Co-Director of Speech for East Los Angeles College, and the current world-title holder in Hating the LA Dodgers. They know what they did. The '25-'26 season will be her 14th year coaching Speech; the real trophies were the friends we made along the way, or something like that.
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    Aden Smith

    (He/Him)
    Arizona State University
    Staff Bio:
    Aden competed in policy debate for three years at Arizona College Prep High School and currently debates at Arizona State University where he qualified to the NDT. He has also been an assistant coach at Tempe Preparatory Academy for a year where he assists with the speech team. He has focused mainly in kritikal debate, but also has engaged casually with policy arguments. He is very excited to meet everyone at SWISDI!!!
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    Seep Chubrich Seep

    (She/her)
    N/A
    Staff Bio:
    Have coached, assisted, and/or directed every SWSDI since its inception. It’s my very favorite thing.