HSAPQ
High School Academic Pyramid Questions
Member Biographies
Evan Adams
I am a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University where I am majoring in English. I am vice president of VCU Quizbowl and played four years of high school quizbowl at Maggie Walker where my team won the 2007 PACE NSC and NAQT HSNCT. I have written questions for the PACE NSC and the Governor's School Academic Competition at Maggie Walker.
Andrew Alexander
I have recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BS in Chemistry and will be attending Medical School at VCU in the fall. My past editing and writing experience consists of editing/writing the science questions for the collegiate FEUERBACH and FICHTE II tournaments and writing for several independent high school tournaments.
Jeff Amoros
I am a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, where I played quizbowl my senior year and helped edit TIT 2009 as well as the Maryland Spring High School Tournament. I played quizbowl for three years in high school at Centennial High School in Ellicott City, Md. I enjoy writing history, current events and humanities subjects, and have professional copy editing and fact-checking experience from the Washington Post Express and Capitol File magazine.
Bruce Arthur
I play quizbowl for Harvard University, where I attend law school. Previously, I played for the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. Over the last three years, I have edited all or part of seven different tournaments, ranging from large high school tournaments such as Harvard Fall Tournament to specialty college events such as RMPFest or the Chicago Open History Doubles. I specialize in writing history, religion, mythology, philosophy, and social science.
George Berry
I am a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University majoring in History. I have played quizbowl for four years, two with Douglas Freeman high School, and two with J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, and have contributed to both editions of the HAVOC novice tournament in addition to my work with the upcoming fall novice tournament.
Will Butler
I am a third year at the the University of Virginia majoring in Computer Science and Biology. I have played quizbowl since my freshman year of high school.
Rob Carson
I'm entering my fourth year at the University of Minnesota, where I'm studying English, and I previously played quizbowl for two years at Chaska High School. As a writer and editor, I've worked on the last two iterations of the Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament, both the 2007 Deep Bench and the 2008 Minnesota Open, the 2007 and 2008 PACE NSCs, ACF Fall 2008, and an assortment of regular-season high school tournaments.
Matt Chadbourne
I am a graduate student in mathematics at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where I am president of the quizbowl team. In addition to writing for, editing, and directing high school and college tournaments there, I serve as president of the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance, an organization that promotes the growth of high-quality quizbowl in Missouri.
Trevor Davis
I am a junior at Carnegie Mellon University, studying Computer Science and Philosophy. I serve as president of Carnegie Mellon College Bowl and I previously played for three years at Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota. My editing experience includes 2008 ACF Fall and the upcoming 2009 Chicago Open and 2010 ACF Winter.
Charlie Dees
I am a native of Kansas City. I am a graduate of North Kansas City High School, where I played quizbowl from 2005 until 2008. While there, I helped NKC host more quality tournaments, and I helped write and edit the 2008 Prison Bowl, a tournament run at Hunter College High School in New York. I wrote for the 2009 PACE (Partnership for Academic Excellence) National Scholastics Championship, and In June 2008 I was named a member of PACE. I attend the University of Missouri in Columbia, where I study microbiology and have restarted the quizbowl program.
Eric Douglass
I am a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in political science and the University of South Carolina School of Law with a Juris Doctorate. I played for the Academic Team at the University of South Carolina as a student, and I advise the current South Carolina team. I am a member of PACE and I wrote for the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 PACE National Scholastic Championships.
Kurtis Droge
Kurtis is a graduate of East Lansing High School, where he achieved several high individual and team finishes at high school national championship tournaments, and now plays quizbowl for the University of Michigan.
Ian Eppler
I am a freshman at Brown University. I played 4 years of quizbowl at Georgetown Day School, where I played on the 2009 Georgetown Day team that placed 3rd at the PACE NSC. I co-edited the 2008 No Name Tournament, a high school question set run at Georgetown Day and Notre Dame, and I am working on the 2009 Brown Early Fall Tournament and the 2010 Georgetown Day School tournament.
Andrew Feist
Andrew is now a math instructor after receiving his PhD in mathematics from Duke University in 2005.
Carsten Gehring
I am a sophomore at Carleton College, and I have been playing quizbowl in Minnesota since my first year at Wayzata High School. I am part of the leadership of the Carleton Academic Quiz Team. I have written questions for various high school and college events during my playing career, and I occasionally serve as a proofreader for HSAPQ sets.
Ted Gioia
I am from Washington DC and am a junior at Harvard concentrating in literature. I am the Communications Director of HSAPQ and was an editor for the 2009 PACE NSC. I was the captain of the 2007 Gonzaga team and currently serve as an instructor at ACE camp. For the high school level I have edited the 2008 Wallace Stevens Literature Singles at the Weekend of Quizbowl, the 2007 Harvard Fall Tournament, and the 2007 & 2008 Gonzaga Tournaments. At the collegiate level I edited ACF Fall 2008 and the Harvard International and will be working on ACF Regionals in 2010.
Auroni Gupta
I am a sophomore studying bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego, where I managed to revive the quizbowl team. I have played collegiate quizbowl for one year, and high school quizbowl for two years prior to that. I have co-edited the recent 2009 Missouri Open and will serve as Arts and RMP editor for the upcoming 2009 ACF Fall.
Andrew Hart
I am entering my senior year at the University of Minnesota, where I study English literature. As an editor of high school questions, I have been a lead editor on regular-season HSAPQ and independent Minnesota-run events. Last year, I was the editor-in-chief of PACE's National Scholastics Championship tournament. In the college circuit, I have edited two iterations of ACF Fall and Minnesota's Undergraduate Tournaments, as well as the regular-difficulty Deep Bench tournament in 2007 and the advanced difficulty Minnesota Open in 2008.
Chuhern Hwang
I am a freshman at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science. I played quizbowl for four years at James Monroe High School and participated twice in the PACE National Scholastic Championship. I contributed to HAVOC II and I am currently a subject editor and writer for the Fall Novice Tournament.
Ike Jose
I am a freshman at the University of Illinois. I was partially responsible for Ohio's From Here to Eternity Tournament and was in charge of the production of The Mahfouz Memorial Literature Singles at the 2009 edition of the Weekend of Quizbowl. This year I will serve as an editor for Illinois Open.
Hannah Kirsch
I am a senior premedical student at Brandeis University, where I have played quizbowl since my freshman year.
Jonathan Magin
I'm currently a writing tutor/editor after graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in English. I played quizbowl for four years at Montgomery Blair High School and three years at Maryland. As a member of PACE and ACF, I contributed to PACE NSC in 2008 and 2009, served as a subject editor for ACF Fall 2007, and head-edited ACF Regionals 2009. I've also head-edited the Chicago Open Literature Tournaments in 2007 and 2008, and two experimental difficulty tournaments that took place during the weekend of HSNCT in 2008 and 2009. I enjoy crafting well-written questions, reading fiction, and running to pieces of classical music.
Charles Meigs
Charles is a graduate of UCLA, where he played on many successful quizbowl teams. He now studies Arabic language and culture through the University of Maryland, where he played on the 2008 NAQT collegiate championship team.
Will Nediger
I am a junior at the University of Western Ontario, where I study linguistics and Spanish and run the Quizbowl club. As a freshman, I was a member of the only Canadian team to have made it to the finals of the DII NAQT ICT, even though I can only answer tossups about books I've read. Aside from writing for HSAPQ, I am a member of the editing team for ACF Fall 2009, and write the occasional freelance packet.
Cameron Orth
Last year, I was a home schooled student going to Cosby High School on a part-time basis. Over my two years at Maggie Walker Governor’s School, I co-edited both GSAC XV and HAVOC I, which I co-directed, and served as science editor of HAVOC II. At the college level, I collaborated on a summer open tournament and wrote a Music-only side event for August's VCU Open weekend. I plan to continue writing and editing at both levels in my next four years at Dartmouth College, where I will likely major in Mathematics and Psychology.
Shawn Pickrell
I have been playing, coaching, officiating, and question writing for 20 years. While in school, I founded or expanded teams at Warren County High School, Randolph-Macon College, and George Mason University. After retiring as a player, I spent nine years as Scholastic Bowl Commissioner for the Virginia High School League, and in 2007-08, I wrote questions for the Missouri State High School Activities Association's academic competition. After retiring from question writing to spend more time with my family, I am putting my experience in founding the Scholastic Bowl Company of Virginia, Inc., to help HSAPQ's mission of providing high quality quizbowl questions.
Bernadette Spencer
I am starting my junior year at the University of Minnesota where I focus on all kinds of political, religious, and literary theory. I played quizbowl for the past six years, both at Minnesota and DeLaSalle High School. I've been involved with writing and minor editing for Minnesota Open, MUT, PACE Spring 2009 and minor writing for PACE NSC 2009.
George Stevens
I am a sophomore at Clemson University where I am majoring in History (and probably English), and serve as the president of our quizbowl team. I played quizbowl for four years at Dorman High School under coach Eric Huff and as a senior my team placed in the top five at four national tournaments. I have written for several collegiate tournaments (Illinois Open, Harvard T Party, etc.), served as a history editor for the Harvard T Party, and served as the sole editor of the 2009 Geography Monstrosity. Later this year, I am serving as the history and geography editor for the 2009 ACF Fall. My work with high school includes writing for the 2009 PACE NSC, writing two tournaments for ACE Camp in 2008, and more.
Daichi Ueda
I am a freshman at Vanderbilt University planning to major in economics. I graduated from Walter Johnson High School, where I played quizbowl for four years. I have played collegiate quizbowl since sophomore year and contributed questions to several high school and college tournaments. I was one of the two chief-editors for the high school question set Prison Bowl II (2009).
Andy Watkins
I'm a junior chemistry major at Harvard. My past editing experience includes the third Harvard Fall Tournament, a resurrection of the packet-submission T-Party, and the first Harvard International; I also edited HSAPQ's ACF-4 set. This year, I will be editing the next edition of each of those three tournaments, as well as a nationals-level collaboration called FIST. I am a member of PACE, and I wrote for last year's NSC, a role I hope to continue this year.
Matt Weiner
I am an alumnus of Virginia Commonwealth University, where I majored in history and led the quizbowl team to six Top 10 finishes at national championship tournaments. I have written over 4000 high school questions in my career. I have also edited such collegiate tournaments as Penn Bowl, ACF Fall, ACF Regionals, and ACF Nationals. From 2002 to 2008, I was the head editor of the PACE National Scholastics Championship. I have also directed seventeen high school tournaments and ten collegiate tournaments.
Dwight Wynne
I am a graduate student in biomedical engineering at UC Irvine with a degree in cybernetics from UCLA. Previously, I played for four years at Capistrano Valley High School, where I was the leading individual scorer at the 2003 HSNCT. My editing credits include Zot Bowl 2008 and ACF Nationals 2009, and I am currently involved in efforts to spread high school quizbowl in Southern California.