Professional Staff
NAUDL STAFF | LOCAL UDL DIRECTORS
Chairman of the Board:
Lenny Gail
Phone: 312-427-0175
Email: LennyGail@UrbanDebate.org
Interim Executive Director:
Eric Tucker
Phone: 312-771-1816
Email: EricTucker@UrbanDebate.org
Chief Program Officer
Diana Dunker
Phone: 973-494-4023 (PST)
Email: DianaDunker@UrbanDebate.org
Senior Program Consultant:
Les Lynn
Phone: 312-427-8101
Email: LesLynn@UrbanDebate.org
Director of Operations:
Mandela Okere
Phone: 312-427-0175
Email: MandelaOkere@UrbanDebate.org
Financial Officer:
Kathleen Petitti
Phone: 312-427-0175
Email: KathleenPetitti@UrbanDebate.org
Director of Research and Evaluation:
Suzanne Smith
Phone: 312-427-0389
Email: SuzanneSmith@UrbanDebate.org
Director of External Relations:
Shiyin Wang
Phone: 312-427-0388
Email: ShiyinWang@UrbanDebate.org
Chairman of the Board Leonard A. Gail has worked with the NAUDL since December 2006, including serving as the Interim Executive Director through the winter of 2008. Mr. Gail is the Founding Partner of Massey & Gail LLP. He previously served in the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois. Mr. Gail is a Vice Chairman and founder of the Celiac Disease Center at the University of Chicago, Chairman of the Sinai Hospital Medical Group, and a member of the National Advisory Council of the School of Communication at Northwestern University. He has also served as a board member of the Legal Executive Forum and taught trial advocacy at the Law School of the University of Chicago.
Mr. Gail graduated from Dartmouth College in 1985 Magna Cum Laude and Harvard Law School in 1988 Cum Laude. After graduation, he clerked for the Honorable James B. Moran in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. After his clerkship, he joined Kirkland and Ellis as an Associate. In 1991, he and several others left Kirkland & Ellis to form Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar and Scott where he became a partner and worked until 2000. At that time, he became Deputy General Counsel for Bank One where he had responsibility for litigation, bankruptcy, regulatory proceedings, real estate, technology and finance and administration within the Company's Law, Compliance and Government Relations Department before and throughout the merger with JPMorgan.
Mr. Gail debated at Maine East High School in the Chicago area from 1977 - 1981. He was twice the state champion and successfully competed nationally, including a second place finish at the 1981 National Forensic League National Tournament. He also debated at Dartmouth College from 1981 - 1984 where he won numerous awards in inter-collegiate competitive debate, including first place speaker and first place team at the 1984 National Debate Tournament. He was voted "Debater of the Decade" by the National Debate Tournament's Coaches panel and also represented the US in Japan for the biennial Japanese-American exchange debates.
Interim Executive Director Eric M. Tucker was named to his current role at the end of 2009. Previously, Dr. Tucker served the NAUDL as Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer. Dr. Tucker first joined the NAUDL as the founding Director of Programs in 2002. Prior to joining the NAUDL, he founded and coordinated the Rhode Island Urban Debate League, a statewide youth development program that works in four urban districts. He has held previous positions in the Office of the Superintendent in the Providence School Department, the Institute of Education at the University of London within the Bedford Group for Lifecourse and Statistical Studies, the Institute for Elementary and Secondary Education, and the National Coalition of Advocates for Students. Raised in Iowa and Japan, he has consulted with and evaluated non-governmental organizations and school systems in 32 states and on four continents.
Dr. Tucker completed his Doctorate at the University of Oxford with the support of a Marshall Scholarship. His doctoral research investigated the development of measurement instruments to capture return on investment (ROI) for social enterprise that promotes social capital formation and community mobilization. He also graduated with distinction from Oxford with an M.Sc. in Education Research Methodology from the Department of Educational Studies. He holds honors degrees in Public Policy and Africana Studies from Brown University where he received the Truman Scholarship, Royce Fellowship, Noah Krieger Prize for Public Policy research, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Dr. Tucker has also been appointed as a Public Policy Research Fellow at Temple University's Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought in Philadelphia.
Dr. Tucker is the co-editor (with Madhu Viswanathan and Geoffrey Walford) of The Sage Handbook of Measurement. His doctoral thesis, which was entitled Towards a More Rigorous Scientific Approach to Social Measurement: An Empirical and Methodological Enquiry into the Development of Grounded Indicators of Social Capital Formation, has been published as scholarly articles and a book chapter. He co-authored Argumentation and Debate: An Educator's Activities Manual (2004). He also co-wrote How to Build a Debate Program: An Organizer's Manual (forthcoming).
Chief Program Officer Diana Dunker leads the NAUDL's core programmatic efforts to bring debate to more students, schools, and cities. She is primarily responsible for increasing the breadth, depth sustainability, and local ownership of each of the UDLs with which she will work. Ms. Dunker joined the NAUDL from Legal Services of New Jersey, where she served as Chief Section Counsel for Child Welfare and Supervising Attorney for the Youth Law Project. She has twice argued successfully in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court, securing major advances in the protection of family bonds for urban and/or poor children.
Ms. Dunker currently serves as the Chair of the Jersey Urban Debate League (JUDL) Advisory Board. JUDL serves eight high schools and twenty-one middle schools in the greater Newark area and is one of the strongest and most vibrant UDLs in the country. Ms. Dunker debated for Science High School of Newark from 1985-89 during a time when very few urban school debaters competed on the high school national circuit. During her varsity years she and her partner were invited to numerous national round robins and qualified for the NFL National Tournament as well as the Tournament of Champions.
Ms. Dunker graduated from Rutgers University, and worked extensively with the Science High School debate program during her undergraduate years, including coaching the team to the national finals. She has a J.D. from Rutgers Law School and has worked as a legal advocate for GLBT rights, criminal justice rights, and family and child rights. Ms. Dunker also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network and is a member of the Parent Representation Attorney Board of the American Bar Association.
Senior Programming Consultant Les Lynn was named founding Executive Director of the NAUDL in January 2002. In 2000, he was hired by the Open Society Institute to be a national consultant for its Youth Initiatives. Beginning in 1995, Les was the founding Director of the Chicago Debate Commission, which brought academic debate back into the Chicago Public Schools system-wide, while also a Century Fellow at the University of Chicago, where he did graduate work in English Literature and remains a dissertation away from the doctorate.
Mr. Lynn taught English at Whitney Young Magnet High School in the Chicago Public Schools for seven years, where he won a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, was twice selected to be a Mellon Fellow, and won an Oppenheimer grant. He has a B.A. from Northwestern and an M.A. in English from the University of Illinois. Les is a former nationally-ranked debater for Northwestern University, where he was President of the Hardy Debate Society.
As Director of the NAUDL, Mr. Lynn has been principally responsible for the acquisition of over $1.5 million in foundation and corporate grants and more than $500,000 in contributions from individual supporters. Under Mr. Lynn's watch, the Urban Debate Network has grown from 14 to 18 cities, with a commensurate increase in the total number of urban debaters participating. Mr. Lynn currently sits on the Advisory Board of several national urban education or debate education organizations.
Director of Operations Mandela Okere joined the NAUDL in August 2009. Mr. Okere is a Chicago native who has previously worked at the City of Chicago's Department of Human Resources in City Hall. He was also a coach of the debate team for two years at Lane Tech College Preparatory High School, where he had previously been a student and debated. There, he coached the 2008 Chase Urban Debate National Championship winners and served as a mentor to many urban debaters.
A graduate of DePaul University, Mr. Okere received his bachelor's degree in Business Management with another focus in Political Philosophy. He was the Chicago Debate League's 2004 Most Valuable Debater.
Financial Officer Kathleen Petitti oversees the financial management, budgeting, reporting, accounting, and controls of the NAUDL. She joined the NAUDL after a career at JPMorgan Chase, where she served in a number of roles in reporting, forecasting, budgeting, and variance analysis. As Vice President / Finance Manager, she provided in-depth financial analysis for the Law, Compliance, and Government Relations Department and the commercial bank. She also managed the Legal Billing Units, and provided financial support for projects sponsored by JPMorgan Chase's Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Petitti brings to the NAUDL a steadfast commitment to prudent fiscal management of our investors' resources. She guides our efforts to maintain the highest financial and management standards.
In addition to her work with the NAUDL, Ms. Petitti works with Advance Illinois, is the Chairperson of her parish Finance Council, and the Treasurer of the local St. Vincent DePaul conference. Kathleen holds a M.B.A. in Finance and a Bachelor's Degree in History from DePaul University.
Director of Research and Evaluation Suzanne Smith joined the NAUDL in January 2010. Ms. Smith is a former Coordinator of the Rhode Island Urban Debate League, which she saw through its transition from a Providence-based UDL to a state-wide UDL. Ms. Smith’s experience prior to joining the NAUDL also includes designing outcomes-based evaluation metrics for Heartland House, a transitional housing program for homeless families in South Dakota, and work as a research analyst for O’Neil Associates, a public opinion and market research firm in Tempe, AZ.
Ms. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned her A.B. with honors in History and Sociology. While at Brown, she coached Rhode Island Urban Debate League teams at The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center ("The Met") and Feinstein High School, both of Providence, RI. Ms. Smith also holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology. She has taught undergraduate, graduate, and professional seminars in academic and professional writing as well as courses in social theory and urban sociology. Ms. Smith debated for Lincoln High School of Sioux Falls, SD.
Director of External Relations Shiyin Wang joined the NAUDL in September 2008. Previously, he was the NAUDL's Director of Site Growth and Development. Before coming to the NAUDL, Mr. Wang was a Coordinator of the Rhode Island Urban Debate League. Over the course of four years, he helped the UDL add many new volunteers, schools, and debaters. Mr. Wang is also a former Editor in Chief of the Brown Journal of World Affairs.
Mr. Wang is a graduate of Brown University, where he received a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science. Born in Shanghai, China and raised in Milwaukee, WI, Mr. Wang was a high school debater at Milwaukee's Nicolet High School. While at Brown, he taught writing and public speaking to graduate and undergraduate students.
2010 Advocacy Fellows
In partnership with leading law firms around the country, the NAUDL has offered a number of deferred associates the opportunity to help advance the urban debate mission. These Urban Debate Advocacy Fellows help the NAUDL build partnerships with key institutions within the legal profession, including firms, in-house legal departments, law schools, and professional organizations. The NAUDL is proud to publicly welcome our 2009-2010 Advocacy Fellows.
Josh Deitz joins us as a recipient of a public interest fellowship. Josh competed in policy and Lincoln-Douglas debate at Grady High School in Atlanta before moving on to parliamentary debate at York University in Toronto and eventually graduating with a B.A. summa cum laude in political science from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from UC Hastings and will be based in the Bay Area. We wish to thank Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco for their support of the fellowship that made it possible for Josh to work with us.
Georgia Hamann joins us as a deferred associate from Lewis and Roca in Phoenix until June 2010. Georgia debated at Liberty University, where she earned a B.S. magna cum laude with concentrations in English, Philosophy, and Government. She also coached debate at Vanderbilt University, where she obtained a J.D. from the Vanderbilt University Law School and was an editor for the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.
Patty Liu joins us as an Advocacy Fellow. Patty graduated from the University of Southern California with degrees in Communication and Political Science. She taught as a part of Teach for America in Chicago Public Schools. After receiving a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, she served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. Following her year as an Advocacy Fellow, Patty will join the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins.
Craig Ortner joins us as a deferred associate from Mayer Brown in Chicago. He taught high school math and coached speech and Lincoln-Douglas debate in Beaverton, Oregon and in Taipei, Taiwan. He holds a B.S. in Math and Computer Science from Macalester College, an M.S.T. in Mathematics from Portland State University, and a J.D. cum laude from University of Michigan Law School.
Please contact Eric Tucker at EricTucker@urbandebate.org to learn more about Advocacy Fellowship opportunities for yourself or your firm.
