Meet Our Team
You’ll find a lot of extemp camps with good coaches, but very few of them have actually walked the stage and know what it’s like to compete under the biggest lights in this activity. Our renowned instructors are proven winners who have conquered the grandest stages of NSDA Nationals, NCFL Nationals, the Tournament of Champions, the MBA Round Robin, and some of the other largest tournaments in the country. At Paramount, you’ll learn how to compete from the best competitors to ever do it.
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McKinley Paltzik
CAMP INSTRUCTOR
McKinley Paltzik competed for Phoenix Country Day School in Arizona. She is the 2022 and 2023 National Champion and President’s Bowl Winner in International Extemporaneous Speaking and the 2022 and 2023 MBA Champion. She also championed the Harvard National Tournament, the Glenbrooks National Tournament, and the NCFL Grand National Tournament. She is the first competitor to win the Yale Invitational 3 consecutive times, and championed the NYC Invitational twice. McKinley is a student at Harvard University.
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Peter Alisky
CAMP INSTRUCTOR
Peter Alisky competed at Smoky Hill High School in Aurora, Colorado. He is the 2022 National Champion and President’s Bowl Winner (finishing with the best final round ranks in NSDA history), as well as a back-to-back Colorado state champion. He was a 2X invitee and top-6 finisher at the MBA Round Robin and made the final round at Duke, Yale, Bronx, Glenbrooks, Princeton, and the University of Kentucky. Peter is a student at Stanford University.
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Ananth Veluvali
CAMP INSTRUCTOR
Ananth competed at Edina High School in Edina, Minnesota. As a competitor, he won the NCFL National Tournament (unanimously winning the tournament’s final round). He’s also one of a few competitors in history to place in the top three of every major national championship (2nd at MBA, 2nd at the Extemp TOC, and 3rd at UKTOC), and he’s finaled at Bronx, Glenbrooks, and Harvard. Ananth is a student at Stanford University.
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Kyle Letterer
Kyle Letterer was a competitor at Plano West Senior High School in Plano, Texas. He was the 2023 NSDA National Champion in United States Extemporaneous Speaking. He’s won the Stanford Invitational, the Longhorn Classic, and went back-to-back at TFA State, while also placing 3rd at MBA. Outside of extemporaneous speaking, Kyle competed on Team Texas, helping to represent Texas and the United States at domestic and international competitions in World Schools Debate. Kyle is currently a student at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Katelyn Cai
Katelyn Cai is a sophomore Robertson Scholar at Duke University. In high school, she was at one point ranked #1 in the country by the Extemper’s Bible National Points Race, having accumulated 15+ TOC bids over the course of her career. She was a NSDA & TOC national finalist; she also championed the Glenbrooks & James Logan, was a two-time Harvard runner up & MBA invitee, and was top 3 at the Barkley Forum, Stanford, Longhorn, ASU and numerous other national circuit tournaments. Now, she coaches, with her students having made outrounds at Nationals, Harvard, Berkeley, Yale, and ASU.
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Daniel Kind
Daniel Kind competed for Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida. During that time, he won over a dozen national and invitational tournaments, including NCFL Nationals, Harvard, Glenbrooks, and the Barkley Forum (twice). He was also the 2021 Florida state champion in international extemp, the 2022 NSDA IX runner-up, and he placed 3rd at MBA. Daniel is currently a student at the University of Chicago.
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Cameron Roberts
Cameron Roberts is a sophomore at NYU majoring in Global Liberal Studies with a concentration in Politics, Rights, and Development and minoring in French. She was the 2022 Extemp TOC Champion, two-time ETOC finalist, two-time Texas state champion winning in both TFA and UIL, 2020 NSDA finalist, and a 2022 MBA invitee.
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Dev Ahuja
Dev Ahuja competed at Solon High School in Solon, Ohio. He was the three-time consecutive Ohio State Champion in US Extemp, garnering the most “1s” throughout the tournament in 2022 and 2023, and a finalist at the NSDA National Tournament. He was also a two-time invitee to the MBA Round Robin and reached the final rounds at Duke, UPenn, Glenbrooks, NIETOC, and GMU. Dev is a student at Harvard College.
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Gabriel Frank-McPheter
Gabriel Frank McPheter: NSDA 2021 National Finalist and Runner-up, MBA Top 6, 2022 CA State Champ, Finalist at Harvard, Yale, Glenbrooks, Stanford, and more. Gabriel now competes with Stanford Debate Society and Stanford Mock Trial, and is both a private extemp coach and pro-bono coach for his old high school, having coached three state finalists and a national semi-finalist.
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Gabriel Bo
Gabriel Bo is a 2 Time NSDA International Extemp Finalist, Top 5 at 2023 MBA, 2nd at 2023 Extemp TOC, National Finalist at Emory, NIETOC, UT, and 2 Time Texas State IX Finalist.