Co-Founder/ Executive Director

From 1999-2003, DiCo competed on the Stuyvesant HS Speech & Debate Team, where they were a state finalist in Extemporaneous Speaking and a national finalist in Congressional Debate. After graduating with a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale, they joined Teach for America and started debate teams at the Frederick Douglass Academy and Achievement First Brooklyn High School. DiCo is a recipient of several teaching prizes including the Teach for America Alumni Award for Excellence. They have been named a Master Teacher by the Achievement First charter school network and a First Diamond Coach. In 2022, they were honored to receive the Brother Sterner Lifetime Service Award by the National Speech and Debate Association.

Co-Founder / Coach

From 2009-2011, Jonathan competed on the Frederick Douglass Academy Debate Team, where he competed at national tournaments such as the Yale, Columbia and Harvard Invitationals. After graduating with a B.S. in Respiratory Therapy from Stony Brook University in 2017, he started working for NYU Langone Medical Center as a Neonatal Pediatric Specialist. Jonathan is also a successful entrepreneur who has founded Conyers Real Estate, Agbara Health Services, and Conyers Production Company.

He is the author of “I Wasn’t Supposed To Be Here,” a memoir about his journey of resilience despite a challenging childhood.

Director of Programming

Joey competed at Stuyvesant High School from 2002-06, on a team that earned national recognition and with whom he won the NSDA national championship in prose reading. He’s been coaching ever since, and began teaching in 2017. Joey has a B.A. in Economics from Clark University and an M.A. in Education from Relay GSE. In a previous life with the 10th Mountain Infantry Division, he was commended for his work as a civil-military liaison, training officer, and WMD-detection platoon leader. If you count his year running an embassy-sponsored Pashto radio station in Afghanistan, this is his second nonprofit aimed at improving civic discourse.

Coach / Curriculum Developer

Sasan is a longtime debate coach, captain of the nationally-ranked team at Diablo Valley College, and the founder of the Proteus Debate Academy. He's won awards both as a competitor and as a coach, such as making the final round at the Phi Rho Pi College National Championship Tournament and receiving the Collie-Taylor Coaching Fellowship.

Coach

Angie competed on the Cinco Ranch HS Speech & Debate Team in Houston, TX for four years. She won local and state tournaments in addition to breaking twice at NSDA Nationals and claimed the title of 2016 Texas State Champion in Senate Congress. She took her skills as an extemporaneous speaker and mock-senator to Columbia University, where she earned a B.A. in Philosophy at Barnard College in 2022. She forever remains a student of knowledge, learning everyday from both her debate students and her ongoing Islamic and Arabic studies. Coach Angie guides her debaters to use their collective and individual voices for good - and is constantly striving to be a model of such.

Director of Operations

From 2015 to 2016, Doucette taught Advanced Placement Biology at Achievement First, where she met DiCo. Jaimee later transitioned to the role of Student Services Manager, where she managed student enrollment and data, coordinated logistical aspects of student testing, and provided technical support to teachers using the Student Information System. Jaimee continued her journey at Achievement First as the Director of Operations from 2020 to 2022, overseeing operational aspects of the school.

Graphic Designer / Social Media Coordinator

Leah is new to the world of Speech & Debate, but joined BDL’s team after being inspired by the viral HONY story. She has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of South Florida and a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from Ringling College of Art + Design and has nearly a decade of experience working as a graphic designer and art director.

Chairwoman

Fatimah Barker is the interim Executive Director of New York Charter Schools Association.

Fatimah has nearly two decades of experience working in the public charter school sector, serving in multiple capacities with the charter school network Achievement First. Most recently, she served as the Interim Chief Executive Officer for the organization. In that role, she led the strategy for the organization, spanning three states and serving 15,000 students and families with the support of AF’s executive cabinet.

Prior to that, Fatimah served as the network’s Chief External Affairs officer as well as a middle school principal in East New York, Brooklyn.

Fatimah also has experience with higher education and other non-profit work, serving as a consultant with New York based Universities as well as Foundations.

Treasurer

Kathleen Lawler joined KKR in 2021 and is a Director on the Infrastructure team. Kathleen leads KKR's core infrastructure activities in North America as well as the Infrastructure team's utility investments in the Americas, among other sectors. Prior to joining KKR, she was an investment professional with J.P. Morgan's infrastructure investments group, where she was responsible for originating, structuring and monitoring investments in utilities, power and transportation. Prior to J.P. Morgan, Kathleenworked as an investment professional as well as a member of a portfolio company management team at ECP, and prior to joining ECP, was a member of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's power and utilities investment banking group. Kathleen holds a B.A. in Economics & Mathematics from Yale University, where she met DiCo on the rugby team.

Secretary

Martin Bell is a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, the global law firm based in New York, where he is a member of the firm’s Government and Internal Investigations group and leads its Civil Rights and Equity Reviews team. Having spent over a decade as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, he now represents companies, boards, and individuals in investigations and high profile disputes. An experienced trial lawyer, Martin’s pro bono practice also includes representing indigent criminal defendants as an appointee to the Southern District of New York’s Criminal Justice Act Panel.

Martin is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College. He is a member of the Boards of the Harvard Law School Association of New York City, the Office of the Appellate Defender, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and a former trustee of Regis High School, where he did Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Extemp, and Original Oratory many, many years ago.

Angela is an associate in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department, practicing in the Restructuring Group. She regularly represents debtors, creditors, banks, hedge funds, asset purchasers and other strategic parties in a wide range of corporate restructurings and bankruptcies, including domestic and international restructurings, prepackaged and traditional bankruptcies, out-of-court workouts, DIP and exit financings, bankruptcy litigation and Section 363 sales.

Basha Rubin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Priori. Priori revolutionizes how legal teams find and engage outside counsel. Ranked a Chambers Tier 1 Global LawTech company and a Financial Times Intelligent Business, Priori’s cutting-edge technology powers two products: Scout, which surfaces insights about trusted outside counsel relationships to drive informed hiring decisions and D&I initiatives; and Marketplace, which connects legal teams with new talent from Priori’s vetted, global network of attorneys at firms of all sizes.

Basha writes and speaks extensively on how technology is changing and will change the marketplace for legal services. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Techcrunch, Entrepreneur and Corporate Counsel, and she has spoken at ABA Techshow, Women in Legal Technology Conference, Clio Cloud Conference, SXSW, Reinvent Law, SOLID Conference and Legal Geek. Basha has been named an ABA Journal Legal Rebel, Financial Times Top 10 Legal Business Technologist, LTRC Woman of LegalTech, Fastcase 50 award winner and is part of Baylor Law School's "The Braintrust." She holds a JD and BA from Yale University and is a member of the New York Bar.

Basha did Lincoln-Douglas debate at Stuyvesant High School, when she had the good fortune to meet DiCo.

Brandon Stanton is the author of Humans of New York, a photoblog and book. He was named to Time Magazine's "30 Under 30 People Changing The World" list.

Since 2010, Stanton has taken hundreds of portraits of people living and working primarily in New York City, accompanied by bits of conversations about their lives. He has also traveled outside of the United States, capturing people and their lives in more than 20 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Mexico.

In May 2022,his fourteen-part post about Jonathan and DiCo raised $1.3 million to launch Brooklyn Debate League.