SENIOR STAFF + ADMIN
ZACH WU
PRESIDENT (2021-PRESENT)
Zach is a freshman at Vanderbilt University. For the past three years, Zach has been one of the best Congressional debaters in the country. He has championed the Princeton Classic, the UPenn Liberty Bell Classic, the Harvard Forensics Tournament twice, the Illinois Congressional Debate Association’s state championship twice, and the IHSA State Championship. Along the way, he has accumulated 24 bids to the Tournament of Champions, where he placed 2nd in 2023, 2nd in 2023, and was Champion PO in 2022. As one of the co-founders and the sitting president of Youth Voices, Zach has personally helped train over 150 debaters around the country and built one of the most successful extracurricular debate programs in the country. His students, this past season, have won Harvard, Bronx, UPenn, and Durham, and placed in the top 6 of every major championship.
JUSTIN COOPER
SENIOR SPEECH INSTRUCTOR
Justin, a 2020 graduate of Northwestern University, has coached competitive speech since 2016. During his high school speech career at Scarsdale High School in New York, Justin was the 2016 NSDA Champion in Original Oratory, a 2-time New York State Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking, and a 3-time finalist at the prestigious Tournament of Champions in Extemp. In college, he was the 2018 AFA National Champion, alongside 5 national final-round appearances at the collegiate level. Additionally, Justin captured 2 state championships and 2 Big-10 conference titles as captain of Northwestern’s speech team. As a coach, he has coached dozens of state and national finalists in multiple speech events.
SUMEER BENWARA
SENIOR DEBATE INSTRUCTOR
Sumeer has been teaching competitive debate since 2011. He has a Bachelor's in Philosophy from Emory University. From 2011 to 2015, he coached the Buffalo Grove High School debate team in Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum. During this time, he coached multiple IHSA finalists and a Lincoln-Douglas State Champion in 2013. Since 2016, Sumeer has been coaching youth debate and competition classes for grades 4-8, including multiple finalist appearances from his students. Most notably, he has coached Youth Voices President Zach Wu, a two-time Harvard Congress champion and four-time Illinois state champion. His philosophy as a coach centers around understanding the "meta." Sumeer is thrilled to help shape the future thinkers of America!
ANNIE SCHUVER
SENIOR INSTRUCTOR
Annie is currently a JD candidate at the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to that, she captained a successful speech and forensics program at Bradley University, where she was also crowned Impromptu Speaking National Champion in 2018. In total, Annie has been involved in speech and debate for over a decade. She currently coaches part-time for the Cornell University and Northwestern University speech teams. She has spent many summers as part of the Public Address Lab staff at the Bradley Summer Forensics Institute, where she coached several high school students who later advanced to final rounds at IHSA and NSDA.
NICHOLAS CHEN
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Nick is a junior at American University studying International Relations and Data Science. As a Congressional debater, he was captain of the James B. Conant High School Team, where he won the 2021 IHSA State Championship, placed 3rd at the 2020 Sunvitational, 4th at the 2021 Stanford Invitational, and qualified to the Tournament of Champions twice. By the numbers, Nick is one of the, if not the most accomplished Congress coaches at the middle school level. He has coached back-to-back champions at the 2023 and 2022 Middle School Harvard National Forensics Tournament and the 2022 Middle School Tournament of Champions. Nick's coaching philosophy centers around developing incisive analysis, speaking extemporaneously, and effective pre-round planning.