Benjamin Cooper Young Ambassador Award

The Benjamin Cooper Young Ambassador Award is an annual award presented by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence. Established in 2004 as an offshoot of the Benjamin Cooper Academic Ambassador Award, the award recognizes those in college or high school programs (or recent alumni of such programs) for valuable contributions to the high school academic competition community.

Honorees

2004

• David Bykowski, formerly of Furman University, and the University of Michigan

...for his outreach and dedication to developing programs for the high school quiz bowl circuit.

• Matt Weiner, Virginia Commonwealth University

...for his contributions to the high school quiz bowl circuit, including the development and maintenance of the World of High School Quizbowl website.

2005

• Tom Egan, Maine South High School, Park Ridge, Illinois

...for his efforts in supporting and improving academic competition in Illinois..

2006

• Eric Grunden, Raleigh Charter High School, Raleigh, NC

...in recognition of his dedication and effort in building the North Carolina Academic Team Association following the potential elimination of the North Carolina Public Library Quiz Bowl.

2007

• Evan Silberman, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA

...in recognition of his leadership in keeping the Thomas Jefferson team active in the absence of a formal coach or advisor as well as his support of the high school quiz bowl community in the Washington, D.C. area and nationally.

2008

• Lee Henry, Brindlee Mountain High School, Brindlee Mountain, AL

...in recognition of his dedication and effort in building Alabama Quizbowl, specifically building a framework for pyramidal play, and facilitating interactions between Alabama teams, out-of-state teams and outside vendors.

• Chris Sewell

...in recognition of his development of the stat program 'SQBS' which has greatly assisted in the operation of many high school tournaments. This award is given in solidarity with ACF honoring him with the Carper Award.

2009

• Christian Carter, Minneapolis South High School, Minneapolis, MN

in recognition of his development of and continued work with quizbowlpackets.com as well as supporting and assisting in the continuing development of high school quizbowl in Minnesota.

2010

• Sarah Angelo, Maggie Walker Governor's School for Government & International Studies, Richmond, Virginia

for her outstanding and dedicated work as a tournament director and editor, which has expanded and enhanced the independent quizbowl circuit throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.” In the past two years alone, Sarah has been the tournament director of an impressive array of tournaments at Maggie Walker, including GSAC XVI, HAVOC II, a Fall Novice Tournament mirror, GSAC XVII, and an MUT mirror.

2011

• Missouri Quizbowl Alliance

for their work both in tournament direction and personal advising to younger, newer players leading to the recent incredible improvement of the independent circuit in Missouri.

2012

• Lily Chen, Hunter College High School, New York, New York

for working for five consecutive years on editing and directing Prison Bowl, ensuring that a high school housewrite could be one of the highest-quality events of the year for the first time, and for creating online scoresheets and a recruitment flowchart for new clubs across the country.

2013

• Max Schindler, Ladue Horton Watkins High School, Ladue, Missouri

For his work organizing and running tournaments for both middle schoolers and high schoolers, for his work updating the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance contact lists and promoting MOQBA at various events, for his work in creating and head-editing three iterations of the LIST question set, which has consistently been one of the best high school housewrites every year, and for his work in building a large and successful quizbowl program that includes many excellent question writers and players.

2014

• Matt Bollinger, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia and HSAPQ

For his outstanding leadership in making High School Academic Pyramidal Questions (HSAPQ) an example to follow for producing high school questions, especially those heard at National History Bee and Bowl tournaments.

2015

• Nicholas Karas, University of California-Berkeley

for his outreach efforts in Northern California, where the high school circuit has vastly expanded in recent years in large part due to his tireless emailing, phone calls, and mailers to schools, as well as his willingness to direct quality tournaments with teams from over 40 schools.

2016

• Ankit Aggarwal, University of California-Berkeley

for not only helping to rejuvenate the Berkeley club after a few down years, but for invaluable work in the Northern California quizbowl Renaissance that has seen the circuit grow from a small handful of teams to the point where 64 teams competed in the most recent California Cup (which Ankit helped found).

2017

• Jackie Wu, Downingtown East, Exton, Pennsylvania

for her work to convert her school and others in her region to pyramidal quiz bowl, including hosting multiple tournaments.

2018

• Kady Hsu, Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California

for her work to organize and expand the tournament circuit in Southern California.

2019

• Connor Mayers, Penn Manor, Millersville, Pennsylvania

for their outreach work, expanding the high school and middle school circuits in Pennsylvania.

2020

• Ashish Kumbhardare, Penn State, State College, Pennsylvania

for his outstanding outreach and logistics work in Central Pennsylvania, which has included directing high quality events at Penn State, assisting with logistics of other local tournaments, and recruiting and advising new teams.

2021

• Em Gunter, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

for her extraordinary commitment to outreach, both on a local level in central Virginia and on a national level by writing articles on outreach and helping tournament directors handle online logistics.

External Links

• About the Cooper Awards on the PACE website