Meet Our Team
Meet your officers for the 2024-25 season — the people who help our amazing team run smoothly every day :D! Whether you have a question about an assignment or anything regarding S&D they will always be there for you. Whether the weather is cold, whether the weather is hot, we’ll be together whatever the weather whether we like it or not.
President of Speech
Shloka Chawala
President of debate
Raahil Sengupta
Secretaries
Secretary
Dominic Wang
Secretary
Tara Sarhangnejad
VP of Platform
Gavin Liu
VP Of Spontaneous
Riya Balaji
Vice Presidents
VP OF Interp
Noel Thomas
VP Of Congress
Litong Nie
VP of Congress
Nile Rahman
VP of LD debate
Ian Gao
VP Of PARliamentary
Vedh Atmakuri
vp of PARliamentary Debate
Winston Chu
VP of Policy Debate
Harry Yin
VP of Policy
Aria Das
Vp of Public forum
Avni Iyer
Vp of Public FORUm
James Yu
Head of art committee
Catherine Wang
Art Committee
Faye Ooi
Head of Spirit Committee
Mihika Moghe
SPIRIT committee
Saanvi Gunukula
SPIRIT COMMITTEE
Anika Tandon
Head of Fundraising Committee
Heather Chang
Fundraising Committee
Lara Kadir
fundraising committee
Lucas Liu
Coaches
Priya Garcia
Email: pRgarcia@sjusd.org
Priya Garcia is the head coach for Leland Speech and Debate, as well as an English Teacher at Leland. This will be Ms. Garcia’s first year as head coach, and second year as one of the lead instructors of Leland High School. She has previously coached speech and debate at Leland High School, as well as another high school. She also worked at a private speech and debate company. During her time in high school, she competed in Parliamentary Debate and a variety of interpretation events.
GAY BRASHER
Email: gay.brasher@gmail.com
Gay Brasher is a coach for Leland Speech and Debate, and was the head of the Leland Speech and Debate Program for more than 20 years. She is recognized as a seven-diamond coach by the National Speech and Debate Association and is a lead member on the board of the Coast Forensic League. To see her students utilize exercises and rely on tactics they learned from Speech and Debate in college and in their careers is Mrs. Brasher's motivation to continue her efforts. In addition to her work with Leland, Mrs. Brasher has extensive relationships with the Speech and Debate programs at Bret Harte Middle School, Burnett Middle School, Horace Mann Elementary School, and the California Migrant Education program.