Mirza Ahmed

Mirza Ahmed was a quizbowl player and club leader for NYU and Claremont Colleges.

A native of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Ahmed played non-pyramidal quizbowl in middle and high school, achieving success at the nationally-televised Horlicks Genius Bangladesh quiz contest.

Ahmed led the NYU team to its first tournament victory in eleven years at the 2012 NAQT SCT Region 3 (Division II) at Princeton University, followed by a runner-up finish at ICT (Division II), losing the final to Harvard. This represented a major turnaround in the fortunes of a club previously marred by trash capture and generally mediocre performances, laying the groundwork for future successes such as 2nd place finishes at Division I SCT in 2013, 2017, and 2018, and winner of Division II SCT in 2014.

While attending graduate school at Keck Graduate Institute, Ahmed played for the Claremont Colleges team and was a key member of the team that won 2014 NAQT SCT Southwest (Division I), helping the Claremont Colleges qualify for their only Division I ICT appearance to date.

Along with Yogest Raut and Douglas Yetman, Ahmed won the college division of the 2012 Ridgewood Summer Invitational. At the Berkeley mirror of the 2014 VCU Open, Ahmed played on the winning team alongside Jeff Hoppes, Gautam Kandlikar, and Tanay Kothari.

Currently, Ahmed plays occasional open tournaments in the New York area with fellow NYU alums Aaron Cohen, Jason Lai, Michael Zhuang, and Alec Vulfson. He is also active as a staffer for middle school, high school, and college quizbowl tournaments.