IMPACT INSTITUTE
A completely free, high quality, online Congressional Debate space
MEET THE TEAM
Together, We Can Create An Impact
GRANT DAVIS (MIDDLE)
Grant, the Heads of Operations and co-founder, did Congressional Debate at Eagan High School for 3 years (2016-2019), competed in NPDA for the University of Minnesota, and coaches Congress at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School and Cooper High School in MN (2019-present). He is also the Section 6 Debate Manager in Minnesota. His students have won state, qualified to NSDA Nationals, earned all-state awards, earned state sweepstakes awards, earned Best New School at Harvard in 2020, and attended outrounds at Minneapple, Blake, and Harvard.
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Grant, with limited access to circuit tournaments, accumulated 7 bids to the TOC in his 3 year career. He became the first Congressional Debater from Minnesota to final at the TOC in 2019. In Grant's junior year, he broke to semifinals at Minneapple, finals at Blake, semifinals at Nationals, and earned all-state awards. In his senior year, he earned 8th at Minneapple, 4th at Blake, 1st at the Blake Round Robin, 2nd at state, 10th at the TOC, the Prelim Leadership Award at Harvard, a quarterfinal appearance at Harvard and NSDA Nationals, and all-state awards.
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He placed top 3 in state his Novice, Junior Varsity, and Varsity seasons, and represented the Southern District of Minnesota in outrounds at the NSDA National tournament in 2018 and 2019.
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While Grant does not instruct and primarily runs the logistics, he does consistently offer office hours for any and all students!
GRACE BOUTOULI
Grace Boutouli, co-founder, is a rising freshman at the University of Minnesota where she studies Developmental Psychology and African and African-American Studies. During her debate career, she was co-captain of her debate team. She also ranked number one in the state of Minnesota and the top 100 in the country. She also placed third at her state tournament.  She has made it to the semi-finalist levels at Blake, and Minneapple. She also has competed at Harvard, Glenbrooks, and Nationals.
LUKE TILLITSKI
Luke Tillitski is a rising sophomore at Yale University currently taking a gap year due to COVID-19. He has spent his time off from college hiking as much as possible and working as a COVID-19 undergraduate intern for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Luke currently is the Assistant Coach of Congressional Debate for Taipei American School, in which he has coached the runner up at the 2020 Tradition and first international recipient of a ToC bid in Congress. In addition to his coaching experience, Luke also has a successful competitive background. Luke competed in both Congress and World Schools in high school. In Congress, Luke is most notably the 2018 NSDA National Champion (Senate). He also championed Glenbrooks, the Tradition, the Tradition Round Robin, the Blue Key Round Robin, Durham Academy, and the North Carolina State Tournament (2x). He also placed in the top seven at several other national tournaments, including the Tournament of Champions, Harvard (2x), Emory, Blake, the Blake Round Robin, Bronx, and the Bronx Round Robin.
ISAAC SLEVIN
Isaac Slevin is taking a gap year before beginning college in fall 2021 at Brown University. He most recently worked as a field organizer for an environmental conservation organization in Missoula, Montana, and currently coaches Congress privately. As a competitor he earned nine bids to the TOC in two years, his results including finaling at NSDA Nationals, placing 4th at MinneApple, 6th at the Kentucky Season Opener, and 2nd at the Blake Round Robin, all in 2019. He was also ranked 1st in Illinois in Congressional Debate his senior year and won leadership awards in MinneApple finals (2019) and Harvard prelims (2020). He graduated Evanston Township High School in May, where he still works as a debate judge.
His coaching philosophy is rooted in the idea that debaters’ best arguments are the ones they believe are true outside of the round, not the ones that are constructed for convenience or for the sake of argument. He works with students to turn beliefs into arguments to help them grow as competitors, students, and people.
AMAR VYAS (LEFT)
Amar Vyas is a freshman at Cornell University where he is studying Government and Data Science. He graduated from Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio after 4 years of Congressional Debate where he served as the Tournament Director. During his career, he qualified to TOC twice, as well as NSDA and NCFL nationals. He has semi-finaled at Yale, Emory, and Harvard, as well as Best PO and placing at his state tournament. He finished his career ranked second in Ohio and top-30 in the nation. He can’t wait to help everyone improve!
ARTHURÂ HARRIS
Arthur competed in debate for 4 years in high school, mainly in Policy but some Congressional Debate and Public Forum as well. He qualified for NSDA Nationals for Congressional debate in 2012. He graduated from Iowa State University in 2016 with a BS in Economics and Finance, and currently works in portfolio management. He has also been the debate coach for the Bloomington schools for 2 years.
JORDY BARRY (LEFT)
Jordy was the Head Speech and Debate Coach for five years at Millburn High School in New Jersey, and has been coaching for 11 years. She has a Master's degree in International Relations, Bachelor's degrees in Economics and Political Science, and certificates in Intelligence and National Security and Politics and Governance. Currently, she works in politics at the Nevada State Democratic Party and runs her own Corporate Social Responsibility consulting business. As a competitor, Jordy also competed on the national circuit in Congressional Debate, having qualified to the TOC and NSDAs three times. What is more important to her, however, is that she took what she learned as a competitor and from serving as a Parliamentarian at the largest national tournaments in the country and applied it to helping students reach their fullest potential. She has coached multiple students that championed or made the final rounds of Yale, Long Beach, Bronx, Glenbrooks, Princeton, Blake, La Costa, ASU, Penn, Pennsbury, Stanford, Harvard, TOC, CFL Nationals, NSDAs, and more. As a coach, Jordy focuses on ensuring that all students learn how to prepare for Congress correctly, humanizing impacts, and executing rounds in a way that fits their unique styles and passions. Additionally, coming from a research background, she helps students find innovative ways to introduce and refute arguments. She has seen Congress come a long way from being the only female in her outrounds to womxn being a force on the national circuit. She looks forward to helping you take your career to the next level!
RANEN MIAO (LEFT)
Ranen is a rising sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis studying political science and sociology. In high school, he was president of the debate team, a two-year member of the USA Debate Team, and a competitor in Congressional Debate. Internationally, Ranen represented the US in Slovenia, Germany, Singapore and Taiwan, winning tournaments in Slovenia, Cornell, Harvard-Westlake, and Greenhill and placing third in Germany twice. Domestically, Ranen was ranked first in the country for Congress, winning the Tournament of Champions, Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Glenbrooks, Blake, Blake Round Robin, and New Jersey States, and placing 2nd at NSDAs and NCFLs.
Ranen has been coaching for a year at Millburn, his alma mater, and has coached at half a dozen summer programs. Outside of debate, he serves as student body president of his school, sings with his acapella group, and enjoys binging Netflix and playing Animal Crossing. He’s so excited to work with you all this summer!
DEVON SHEWELL
Devon Shewell is a junior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. He is a double major in Communication Studies and Philosophy. Outside of school, he enjoys long distance running, cute puppies, and quesadillas.
Devon has coached students to TOC Bids and placements at Harvard, Yale and Bronx Science to name a few. He has also served as an administrator to the Nashville Middle School Debate League, which he helped found. As a competitor, Devon competed primarily in Missouri in LD and Congressional Debate. He was a multiple time National Qualifier in the Heart of America District. He had a 100% TOC bid success rate, becoming the first Congressional Debater from Missouri to compete at the TOC. Devon placed in the 2018 NSDA Senate Finals and was finalist PO candidate.
SYDNEY GLICKSON
Sydney Glickson is a freshman and Stamps Scholar at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She graduated from Adlai E. Stevenson High School where she was captain of a congressional debate team with almost 200 students. Sydney placed 5th at the 2019 NSDA Tournament, 5th at the Harvard National Forensics Tournament, 2nd at the John Edie Holiday Debates hosted by the Blake School, and 4th at the Sunvitational. She qualified for the Tournament of Champions three times and placed 11th her junior year. Sydney was also a finalist at the Barkley Forum hosted by Emory University and won numerous local and state-level tournaments. After graduating, Sydney began coaching congressional debaters around the country. Two of her students were semi-finalists at the 2020 Harvard National Forensics Tournament and three were semi-finalists at the 2020 Tournament of Champions. Other students have been finalists and semi-finalists at The Bronx Tournament, Emory, the Sunvitational, the Durham Cavalier Debates, the Glenbrooks Invitational, and the Yale Invitational. Congressional debate defined Sydney’s high school experience. She believes debate broadens students’ horizons and makes societal issues personal. To Sydney, debaters are learning the skills our world needs to solve divisive issues. As a coach, she emphasizes the skills of argumentation and persuasion in both content and rhetoric. Sydney focuses on molding her students into debaters who use their unique strengths to their advantage. At Wake Forest, Sydney is a member of the Club Equestrian Team and enjoys playing classic rock on her guitar.
NICHOLAS DEVITO
Nicholas DeVito is a current junior at Tufts University, where he studies International Relations, Quantitative Economics, and Finance. He currently competes for the Tufts University Parliamentary debate team.
During his high school debate career, he advanced to elimination rounds at every tournament he attended and was ranked as high as first in both New York and the nation. Along with this, he currently holds the record for the largest amount of bids to the tournament of champions in congress: 36. During his time as a competitor, he championed the 2018 NSDA National Championship in the House, 2018 Tournament of Champions, 2018 Harvard National Congress, 2017 Pennsbury Falcon Invitational, and 2017 Bronx Round Robin; placed second at the 2017 CFL national championship, 2018 University of Pennsylvania tournament, 2018 Emory Barkley Forum, 2017 Blake Round Robin, 2017 Yale Invitational, 2016 Minneapple, and 2016 Villiger Hosted by St. Josephs; placed 3rd at the 2018 Durham Cavalier Inv
BILAL ANDHA (RIGHT)
Bilal has been in debate throughout high school, serving as the Congressional Debate Captain, Treasurer, and most recently, President, of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In his last two years of debate in which he competed nationally,  he finaled Harvard (2020) in addition to winning the quarterfinal and semifinal leadership award, as well as finaling at the Crestian Tradition in 2019, and semifinaling Sunvite (2020), Harvard (2019), Blue Key (2018) and Nova Titan (2018). Bilal also was the first student in over a decade to qualify to the NSDA Congresnational tournament from his school in which he then quarterfinaled. After qualifying to the TOC twice, Bilal’s favorite moments in the activity were when he met students across the nation. Outside of debate, Bilal loves to play basketball and Poker, and has a deep admiration for kittens.
QUEST SANDEL
Quest Sandel is a coach at John F. Kennedy and James Logan High Schools, he has coached multiple national finalists in Congressional Debate, including the 2019 NSDA Senate National Champion, the Champion of the 2020 Tournament of Champions, the 2020 NSDA Senate Runner-up, the top presiding officer of the 2020 NSDA House, as well as two other NSDA top six placements. His students across events have seen broad success at tournaments across the country, consistently making outrounds at major tournaments such as the Tournament of Champions, NSDA Nationals, NCFL Nationals, Harvard, Emory, Blake, Glenbrooks, Stanford, Arizona State, Berkeley, and CHSSA State. His coaching style depends on the idea that effective coaching is a partnership between coach and student where both are committed to the idea of a student achieving their potential both on and off the debate floor. He looks forward to helping students across the country create successful partnerships with high quality coaches. In his free time, Quest enjoys hanging out with his dog Alpine, trying and comparing lemonade at restaurants across the country, reading Stephen King novels, watching Star Wars, and attending sporting events—he’s also a championship winning fantasy football player.
RAUNAK PANDEY
Raunak Pandey is currently a Sophomore the Univeristy of Minnesota Twin Cities majoring in Industrial & Systems Engineering. Raunak has been to five circuit tournaments and attended nationals in his senior year. He was also the captain in his senior year. His favorite part about Congress is analyzing arguments and refuting points in debate.
ANUSHKA THORAT
Anushka is a Minnesota debater who is super excited to be working with you all! A little about Anushka: She's been doing debate for four years, 2 in Lincoln-Douglas and 2 in Congressional Debate. She have a pretty solid footing for argumentation and weighing through LD, and she's competed both locally and nationally since switching to Congress. I was a finalist at national circuit tournaments like The New York City Invitational (Bronx), The Blake Invitational, and The Minneapple Debate Tournament. She also placed 5th at Blake the following year and 7th at the Dowling Catholic Paradigm. She has qualified to NSDA Nationals twice and was a quarterfinalist in 2018, and qualified to the 2019 Tournament in Champions with 3 bids in Congress. Congress is a really exciting experience, and she wants to share her excitement for it with you all! Debate can often be a classist activity, and so she's hoping that through this camp we can break some barriers together :)
MATT FLEISCHER
Matt Fleischer is a senior at Martin County High School in Florida where he serves as President of his debate team. During the last debate season, Matt finaled at Harvard (2020), Florida Bluekey (2019), George Mason University (2019) and placed 4th at the International Tradition (2019). He also placed 6th at FFL Varsity State (2020), and advanced to elimination rounds at NSDA (2020) and Emory (2020). More recently, Matt founded the May Mayhem Invitational, a free online congress & speech tournament that raised more than $5000 for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Outside of debate, Matt spends lots of his time bowling and with Jersey, an Australian Labradoodle.