Will Alston

Will Alston (2nd from left)
Noted subjects	History, RMP, NAQT stuff, Literature, Fine Arts, General
Past colleges	Dartmouth (2012-2016),Columbia (2019-2021)
High school	Bethesda-Chevy Chase (2008-2012)
HSQB profile	Naan/steak-holding toll
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Not to be confused with Alston Boyd.

Will Alston was a player on Columbia. He was the president of Dartmouth quizbowl until 2016 and formerly played for Bethesda-Chevy Chase with Spencer Weinreich and noted cheater Dmitri Halikias during the 2010-2011 season.

After taking some time off college due to treatment for leukemia, Will has continued to write and play, placing consistently well at open tournaments. Particularly knowledgeable in history, with a focus on world history and obscure non-Greek, non-Roman ancient peoples (which may be credited to his long hours of playing Europa Barbarorum in middle and high school), he was the third scorer on the team that won the 2017 Chicago Open.

Will has become known for his prolific question writing, often being a major contributor to two regular-difficulty sets, writing a side event, and writing numerous questions for NAQT in any given season. After working on the 2014 and 2016 iterations of Penn Bowl and 2014's PADAWAN and DEES, Will led the revival of EFT in 2016, repeating in his capacity as head editor in 2017. In 2017, Will spearheaded a namesake open set, and in 2018, he edited history for ACF Regionals and head-edited the Sun God Invitational. In 2021, he head-edited Chicago Open. He is a frequent collaborator with Jason Cheng, with whom he wrote EFT 2016-18, Sun God, and WAO.

Will has had a somewhat more checkered history writing side events. A leading force behind the disastrous Modern World tournament in 2014, he led the writing of 2016's controversial ARTSEE and produced the vanity set Naveed Bork in 2017. His 2018 side event Historature was somewhat better-received, with its proceeds going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; 2019's Age of Empires also met with a positive response. Will also collaborated with Jordan Brownstein on the acclaimed 2015 history set SHEIKH.

In 2019, he began an MBA program at Columbia. In April 2020, in response to the cancellation of the 2020 ICT, he and Em Gunter organized the Internet Charity Tournament, a weekend of vanity packet readings. In 2021, Will and his Columbia teammates won the 2021 ICT over Illinois and came in second to Florida at 2021 ACF Nationals. He also became the seventh-ever person to be ranked best collegiate player in the collegiate player poll. In 2022, he edited the History, Religion, Geography, and Current Events and co-edited the Social Science and Other Academic for 2022 ACF Nationals.

In early 2024, Alston and non-quizbowler Abhas Arya released Apple and Android versions of a trivia app called KnowIt.

ACF Nationals Leading Scorer
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
Charles Hang	2021	Matthew Bollinger