Alyssa Lucas-Bolin is the Director of Debate at Sonoma Academy. Prior to working at Sonoma, Alyssa served as the Director of Debate at Glenbrook South High School and as an assistant coach at Notre Dame High School. Alyssa has qualified teams to the Tournament of Champions every year she has been a coach and has had teams go as far as the semifinals. She holds a Masters of Art in Teaching as well as a Masters in Communication Studies. She is a Key Coach in the Gold Key Society at Emory University and a recipient of the Rising Star Award from the National Debate Coaches Association.

Sara Erickson has been involved in debate since 1991. As a competitor in high school and college, she won numerous awards in both speech and debate. Sara was a 2 time junior college national champion at the College of Eastern Utah, and was a Cross Examination Debate Association Academic All American in 1998. She has coached at the collegiate level at Cornell and California State University, Long Beach. Sara has coached at the high school level at Notre Dame High School (CA), Juan Diego High School, and Alta High School. She was named the 2023 Veterans of Foreign Wars Utah Middle School Teacher of the Year. Sara just completed year 25 of teaching.

Ian has coached full-time at College Prep in Oakland since 2018, following a decade of coaching at both the high school and collegiate levels beginning in 2008. At CPS, he has coached multiple teams in both Cross-Examination and Public Forum to qualify for the Tournament of Champions. His teams have advanced to deep elimination rounds at national invitationals such as Presentation, Bronx, Damus, Alta, Arizona State, Golden Desert, Stanford, and Cal. Most recently, a CPS Policy team reached the quarterfinals at the Barkley Forum at Emory, while Public Forum teams reached the semifinals at Arizona State and the finals at Golden Desert.

Victoria is currently a management consultant advising foundations, HNWIs, and nonprofits on strategic philanthropy and impact measurement for economic mobility. She started debate as a sixth grader and continued competing through high school, qualifying for NSDA nationals in Duo Interpretation (2014) and in Policy Debate (2017). As president of her high school team and volunteer coach at the local middle school, she created The Debate Guru as a free resource for beginners. Victoria studied business administration, environmental policy, and global poverty at UC Berkeley. In her spare time, you can find Victoria at a farmers’ market, in a hot yoga class, or volunteering with HEAL Utah and Slow Food Utah / USA.

Dylan is currently a teacher in South LA. He started debate as a fifth grader, attending MSPDP nationals in 7th grade. He continued to LD at Brentwood for three years before the pandemic, bidding to the TOC his sophomore year, attending NSDA nationals in LD, BQ, and Worlds, reaching quarterfinals and being a finalist in speech. He continued to debate in policy in college for Emory, reaching finals of the Ziggy. He is currently the associate director of debate at Brentwood, and has coached for Peninsula, Blake, and worked with various AUDL schools. In his free time, he likes to hike, bike, and try new foods.

Dorian is currently an undergraduate student at CSU Long Beach. She started policy debate in high school for LAMDL. She continued to debate in college–-qualifying for the NDT in her first season and breaking at CEDA. Since competing, Dorian volunteers to judge LAMDL tournaments and LD rounds. In her free time, she likes to sew, ice skate, and cook.

John Shackelford brings over a decade of competitive and coaching excellence to the podium, having coached high school debate for nine years and middle school debate for four years. Passionate about empowering young debaters, John has coached multiple teams to the finals at Middle School Nationals. He was also brought on by the prestigious Harker School to help elevate their middle school debate program to a top-three program in the nation. John’s impactful coaching style has even been recognized internationally, helping middle school students in China reach their competitive goals. A former Utah State Champion from Bingham High School and a collegiate national octo-finalist from the University of Utah, John is dedicated to mentorship and dreams of expanding debate access to underserved youth in the juvenile hall system. John currently helps his older brother Mike Shackelford and friend Zach Theide at Rowland Hall, UT.

Zach is a history teacher and the assistant debate coach at Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City. Zach has been a high school policy debate coach for nine years and since he began at Rowland Hall has qualified a team to the TOC every year. As a college debater, Zach qualified for the NDT every year he debated and won multiple tournaments. Holding degrees in Latin and German Grammar, Zach was a 2025 Fulbright Scholar in Berlin teaching English and Debate to German high schoolers. This is his fourth year teaching at the CNDI.

Tom is currently an undergraduate student at McGill University in Montreal. He debated for Park City, in Utah, and now serves as a coach for the school’s PF team. As a competitor, he amassed 8 bids and qualified for the Gold TOC twice. Most notably, he won Alta, reached semifinals at Stanford, and reached deep elimination rounds at Glenbrooks, Apple Valley, and UNLV Golden Desert. Tom had the opportunity to compete nationally as both a first and second speaker and has experience debating at every point of the round. He is extremely excited to join CNDI this summer!

A former head speech and debate coach at Park City High School, Gavin’s students have advanced to elimination rounds at Yale, UK, Bronx, The Mid-America Cup, Apple Valley, Glenbrooks, Alta, ASU, UNLV, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Millard North, NSDA Nationals, NDCA Nationals, and the TOC in LD and PF. Gavin also coached back-to-back Utah state champions in Policy and LD. Gavin now coaches PF for the Nueva School.

Tommy is currently a senior undergraduate aerospace engineering student at Cal Poly Pomona who has interned at and won travel awards from NASA. He participated in PF and Policy Debate for Copper Hills High School under Scott Odekirk from 2014 -2016 and went on to debate for Weber State University until 2018.Tommy coached students from Ben Lomond High to qualify to state in PF in 2018 and has been judging for Rowland Hall since 2022.