PACE Board of Directors 2023-24

Mia McGill – President
Mia McGill (they/them) joined PACE in 2021, but has been involved with quizbowl since 2015. They live in Minnesota, where they staff many local tournaments around the Twin Cities and work in the arts nonprofit field. Mia is passionate about equity, accessibility, and misconduct reform within quizbowl, and currently serves as one of PACE’s representatives to the Misconduct Reporting Form. They’re looking forward to continuing to improve the NSC and PACE’s infrastructure as a whole.

Michael Bentley – Treasurer
Michael Bentley joined PACE in 2008. He has formerly served as PACE’s President and VP of Editing. He has also worked on technology projects with PACE including an online tournament guide, a USB buzzer system, and the QEMS2 question management system. Michael is based in Seattle and continues to play and write open tournaments.

Victor Prieto – Secretary
Victor Prieto (he/him) was first introduced to quizbowl at Rice University in 2011. After graduating in 2015, he completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at Penn State, where he built a strong quizbowl program that is now a central component of the Pennsylvania circuit. Victor joined PACE in 2015, and went on to become VP of Outreach, VP of Tournament Direction, and President (2020-22). He currently serves as Secretary, where he keeps routine operations running smoothly within PACE. In addition, Victor is focused on developing new technologies to assist tournament direction. Victor currently lives in Queens, NY.

Ganon Evans – Vice President of Editing
Ganon Evans (he/him) has been a PACE member since 2022 and has been playing quizbowl since he was in high school in 2014. Ganon is a native of Missouri and currently works out of the Kansas City area where he works in public policy. Ganon is the current President of ACF, a Misconduct Form Representative, can be regularly see volunteering for events through the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance. He is excited to produced another fun, high quality, NSC set for 2024.

Ben Weiner – Vice President of Tournament Direction
Ben Weiner (he/him) joined PACE in 2021, and has been involved with quizbowl since 2016. He lives in Minneapolis, MN where he attends the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and serves as the President of UMN Quizbowl. He’s passionate about the growth of quizbowl at the high school level by making pyramidal more accessible for all players and teams. He directed the 2023 NSC and is looking forward to making the 2024 NSC the best experience for players, coaches, and staff.

Casey Bindas – Vice President of Event Management
Casey Bindas has been a member of PACE since 2018, and previously served as the VP of Tournament Direction in 2021 and VP of Event Management in 2023. He played quizbowl at Canton High School in Michigan, the University of Central Florida, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Michigan Technological University. He currently lives in Georgia where he continues to staff high school and college quizbowl tournaments. Casey is passionate about tournament logistics and is looking forward to making the 2024 NSC a great experience for all.

Sadie Britton – Director of Communications
Sadie Britton (she/her) joined PACE in 2020 and has worn a lot of hats in that time, from NSC liveblogger to VP of Outreach– but she’s played quizbowl in various formats since she was in middle school. She is an alumna of the College of William & Mary, where she was the vice president of the W&M quizbowl team for two years. She loves being an ambassador for our great game and is looking forward to serving as PACE’s director of communications this year. She also serves as one of PACE’s representatives on the Quizbowl Misconduct Reporting Form, and is passionate about making quizbowl a safer, more inclusive community. Sadie lives in Minneapolis and works at the University of Minnesota.

Jay Winter – Vice President of Outreach
Jay Winter (he/him) joined PACE in 2020 and has been involved in quiz bowl as a coach, tournament director, and circuit leader since 2007. He coached previously at Greenville High School in Illinois, and then started a team at Waukee High School in suburban Des Moines in 2015, with the Warriors winning four state championships. Also that year, he founded the Iowa Quiz Bowl League. In 2021, when Waukee opened up Northwest High School, Winter went to the new building and started a team, with the Wolves going to PACE NSC in 2021 in their first year of competition. He was honored for his efforts by PACE in 2023 with the Benjamin Cooper Academic Ambassador Award. Jay and his spouse live in west suburban Des Moines, and he enjoys playing card games and board games, working on home improvement, cooking, and of course, quiz bowl.

Ashish Kumbhardare – Vice President of Tech
Ashish Kumbhardare (he/him) joined PACE in 2023, but has been involved with quizbowl in 2012. Originally from West Chester, PA; he currently lives in Mt. Laurel, NJ; where he works on maintaining and testing software for the AEGIS Combat System. Within quizbowl, Ashish is passionate about outreach, technology, and roadblocks new teams face and how PACE can help overcome these roadblocks. Ashish currently plays quizbowl for Rowan University, and can be seen staffing quizbowl tournaments in the Philadelphia area.
PACE Members
Name | Date Joined | Affiliation | State |
---|---|---|---|
Aaron Rosenberg | 2008 – June | University of Illinois | VA |
Aidan Leahy | 2023 – July | University of Georgia | GA |
Aidan Mehigan | 2012 – July | Columbia University | NJ |
Albert Zhang | 2021 – July | Columbia University | NY |
Alejandro Lopez-Lago | 2020 – January | University of Washington | WA |
Andrew Wang | 2016 – July | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | IL |
Ankit Aggarwal | 2016 – July | University of California, Berkeley | CA |
Anna Csiki-Fejer | 2023 – July | Saint Louis University | MO |
Antonio Jimenez | 2021 – January | University of Pennsylvania | PA |
Arjun Nageswaran | 2022 – January | Harvard University | IL |
Ashish Kumbhardare | 2023 – July | Rowan University | NJ |
Athena Kern | 2016 – January | Washington University in St. Louis | KY |
Ben Chapman | 2023 – July | University of Toronto | ON |
Ben Kirk | 2022 – July | Ithaca High School | NY |
Ben Weiner | 2021 – July | University of Minnesota | MN |
Bing Bingham | 2020 – July | Wright State University | OH |
Casey Bindas | 2018 – July | Michigan Technological University | GA |
Catherine Qian | 2020 – July | University of Pennsylvania | VA |
Chandler West | 2020 – January | Vanderbilt Unviersity | TN |
Chloe Levine | 2018 – July | Harvard University | NY |
Chris Ray | 2007 – June | The Ohio State University | MD |
Cody Voight | 2014 – June | Virginia Commonwealth University | VA |
Colin McNamara | 2011 – July | Boise State University | ID |
David Bass | 2023 – January | University of Virginia | VA |
Dylan Minarik | 2017 – June | Northwestern University | WI |
Felix Wang | 2023 – July | University of Missouri | MO |
Ganon Evans | 2022 – July | University of Iowa | MO |
Geoffrey Wu | 2023 – July | Columbia University | NY |
Giifti Benti | 2023 – July | SIUE | IL |
Hari Parameswaran | 2022 – January | Georgia Institute of Technology | GA |
Harry White | 2019 – July | Virginia Polytechnic Institute | VA |
Jay Winter | 2020 – July | Waukee High School Coach Iowa Quiz Bowl League CEO | IA |
Joe Nutter | 2014 – January | Michigan State University | GA |
Jonathan Pinyan | 2012 – July | Bergen County Academies | NJ |
Joseph Krol | 2022 – July | University of Cambridge | UK |
Kady Hsu | 2019 – July | University of California, Berkeley | CA |
Katherine Lei | 2021 – January | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MA |
Kiran Rachamallu | 2023 – July | William & Mary University | VA |
Lauren Onel | 2021 – January | University of Chicago | IL |
Marianna Zhang | 2014 – June | Stanford University | CA |
Mia McGill | 2021 – July | Irondale High School | MN |
Michael Bentley | 2008 – June | University of Washington | WA |
Michael Borecki | 2018 – July | Bowdoin College | ME |
Michael Hundley | 2012 – July | Virginia Polytechnic Institute | VA |
Michael Sorice | 2008 – June | University of Illinois Rantoul Township High School | IL |
Naveed Chowdhury | 2019 – July | University of Maryland | GA |
Nina Kaushikkar | 2022 – July | University of Minnesota | MN |
Ophir Lifshitz | 2017 – February | University of Maryland | MD |
Ramapriya Rangaraju | 2019 – July | University of Louisville | KY |
Rebecca Rosenthal | 2018 – July | Swarthmore College | TX |
Rob Carson | 2008 – June | University of Minnesota | MN |
Ryan Ritter | 2023 – January | James Madison | VA |
Ryan Rosenberg | 2014 – January | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | CA |
Sadie Britton | 2020 – January | College of William and Mary | VA |
Sam Luongo | 2010 – July | Virginia Commonwealth University | VA |
Samir Sarma | 2023 – July | Georgia Institute of Technology | GA |
Tejas Raje | 2019 – February | Cornell University | IL |
Tejas Santanam | 2019 – July | Georgia Institute of Technology | GA |
Tracy Mirkin | 2019 – July | University of Florida | FL |
Victor Prieto | 2015 – June | Penn State University | NY |
Will Grossman | 2021 – January | University of Florida | FL |
Zac Bennett | 2022 – July | University of Oklahoma | OK |
Click here for a list of former Boards of Directors and members.