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

Year	Young Cooper Awardee	Citation
2004 (co-awardee)	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."
2004 (co-awardee)	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 (co-awardee)	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."
2008 (co-awardee)	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... outstanding and dedicated work as a tournament director and editor, which has expanded and enhanced the independent quizbowl circuit throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.”
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 their 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."
2022	Kevin Kodama, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington	"for his exemplary leadership and extensive outreach work to introduce new schools in the Washington circuit to the world of pyramidal quizbowl through sustained efforts to build and maintain relationship with teams and coaches new to quizbowl."
2023	Joy An, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Connecticut	"in recognition for their work in writing, logistics, mentorship and overall contribution to the Connecticut quizbowl community."

External Links

• About the Cooper Awards on the PACE website