Rob Carson

Rob Carson
Noted subjects	Literature, fine arts, mythology, trash, shameless fraud, meta, etc.
Current college	BHSU
Past colleges	Minnesota (2007-2011), MCTC (2013-2014)
High school	Chaska (2005-2006)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Rob Carson is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota, where he and perennial teammate Andrew Hart won the 2011 ICT. In 2019, his writing, forums adminship, and community-building work was recognized with the Carper Award.

While a freshman at Minnesota, Rob was a member of the inaugural official ACF Undergraduate and Division II National Championship team. He has since gone on to win two more ACF undergrad titles, an ICT undergrad title, the overall ICT title in 2011, and a Chicago Open title. He also was part of the Ooh Aah Aah Aah team that won the inaugural CULT national title. He is widely regarded as one of the best mythology players in the game.

According to Andrew Hart, Rob is "an excellent question writer and editor." Less subjectively, he co-created and served as a major editor and contributor to Minnesota's two annual tournaments, Minnesota Open and MUT, before head-editing marquee sets like the acclaimed 2011 ACF Regionals, the 2017 and 2018 PACE NSCs, and the 2016 ACF Nationals. He now writes full-time for NAQT.

He is also widely believed to be the youngest man to ever win the CBI National Championship, doing so in 2007 at 18 years, three months.

Among his other quizbowl bona fides, Rob is known as an excellent moderator (being selected to read the finals at both ACF Nationals and ICT in 2019, 2021, and 2022), and is a perennial candidate for "handsomest man in quizbowl." Along with Andrew Hart, Billy Busse, Tejas Raje, and a shadowy assortment of other geriatrics, Rob often competes at opens under the aegis of "BHSU," or Ball So Hard University.

Writing/Editing Experience

Past

• 2007 Deep Bench (with Andrew Hart)
• 2007 Illinois Open Literature Tournament (contributed some questions)
• 2008 EPIC (chief video games editor, overall editing; with Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, Trevor Davis, Kirk Walton, and others)
• 2008 MUT (with Andrew Hart and Gautam Kandlikar)
• 2008 Minnesota Chitin Classic (high school; with Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, and others)
• 2008 PACE NSC (wrote most of the myth, some religion, philosophy, visual fine arts, and trash)
• 2008 Minnesota Open (with Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, Bernadette Spencer, and Charles Meigs)
• 2008 ACF Fall (edited myth, world literature, religion, other visual fine arts, computer science, some earth science/astronomy, and trash; with Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, Trevor Davis, and Ted Gioia)

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• 2011 Minnesota Open (with Eric Mukherjee, Mike Cheyne, Bernadette Spencer, and help from Saajid Moyen, Patrick Liao, Andrew Hart, and James Lasker)
• 2012 PACE NSC (literature editor)
• 2013 MUT (head editor; with Mike Cheyne, Andrew Hart, Gaurav Kandlikar, Bernadette Spencer, and Matt Menard)
• 2013 ACF Regionals (religion and mythology editor; with Chris Ray, John Lawrence, and Cody Voight)
• 2013 PACE NSC (literature editor)
• 2014 MUT (head editor; with Billy Busse, Mike Cheyne, Andrew Hart, Melanie Keating, and Bernadette Spencer)
• 2014 PACE NSC (head editor)
• 2014 ACF Fall (proofreading, some second-pass editing)
• 2014 Penn Bowl (literature editor)
• 2014 DEES (edited visual fine arts, mythology, geography, and general knowledge as part of a volunteer emergency editing crew)
• 2015 MUT (head editor; with Mike Cheyne, Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, Shan Kothari, Bernadette Spencer, and Cody Voight)
• 2015 ACF Nationals (co-head editor with Ryan Westbrook; edited literature, music, and mythology)
• 2015 PACE NSC (literature editor)
• 2016 ACF Nationals (head editor; edited American and British literature, fine arts, and mythology)
• 2016 PACE NSC (fine arts and mythology editor)
• 2017 & 18 PACE NSC (head editor)

Rob also took a prominent role under the overall leadership of Eric Mukherjee in the 5th of March Incident, helping to write and edit an NHBB A-set in an unprecedented 12-hour blitz.

Notable Tournament Appearances

Man alive does this need renovation.

ICT DI Leading Scorer
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
Trevor Davis	2013	Matt Bollinger

Carper Award
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
Mike Bentley	2019	Alex Damisch