Meet The Team
Deepak Ragu
Founder​
Deepak Ragu is currently a student at UC Berkeley, currently serving as a Vice Chair for Berkeley Model United Nations and as the Scholarship Director for Sigma Alpha Nu. Deepak was previously the VP of Finance and assistant VP of Conference Preparation of Foothill Model United Nations. As a participant of Model UN, Deepak has won multiple Model UN competitions across the U.S., including first place at Stanford MUN, Berkeley MUN, and 3rd place at UChicago MUN. Deepak was also previously a member of We The People, winning 2nd at States and ranking in the top 15 at Nationals.
Allison Lee
Founder​
Allison Lee is an incoming political science major at UCLA and past co-president of Foothill Speech and Debate. She has four years of debate experience, and has made quarterfinalist and semifinalist at the Santa Clara University debate tournament. She also placed as 5th best speaker at the NCFL national qualifier and won 1st place at the post-level American Legion Oratorical Contest. She was also a competitor at the 2020 We the People National Finals.
Abhishek Koul
Founder​​
Abhishek Koul is the current Co-President for Foothill Speech and Debate. He has competed in debate tournaments for three years, going deep into elimination rounds. He has reached octofinals at Berkeley and Stanford and Quarterfinals at Santa Clara University. He coached Foothill Debate to first place at the University of Pacific in the Small School Entries section. He qualified to the Silver Tournament of Champions and is Nationally ranked.
Founders
Teachers
Parul Gupta
Kaviya Raja
​
Parul is the current VP of Outreach for Foothill Speech & Debate. She has competed in numerous tournaments these past few years and has reached octofinals in public form at Santa Clara University's Fall Debate Tournament in 2019. Recently, she placed 6th in Original Oratory at the Bellaire Forensic Tournament and received a bid to the Tournament of Champions in Speech. Parul has been consistently nominated a speech finalist at Challenger School and has won first place in a local speech contest held in Fremont. She has experience in tutoring K-8 in many subjects and has been with Speak Out for a year. She finds monstrous joy in helping others and is proud to be part of the team!
Kaviya Raja is an incoming sophomore at Foothill High School. Throughout elementary and middle school, she never had a profound interest in public speaking. This was due to the lack of representation in public speaking throughout early schooling. However, this all changed when she decided to join Model United Nations and Speech and Debate upon entering high school. At first, she did not expect to enjoy it, but after attending her first MUN conference she quickly realized that public speaking was truly something she loved to do. She continued to attend multiple debate tournaments and Model UN conferences throughout her freshman year of high school, and even placed in a few MUN conferences within her first year. She has done public forum debate for the past year. She is currently a MUN junior officer, where she will be teaching middle school students about Model United Nations. She has made it to octofinals at Santa Clara University's Fall Debate Tournament, and she will serve as Foothill's VP of Club Management for the 2020-2021 school year.
Kiran Suresh
​Founder​
Kiran Suresh is the Co-President for Foothill Speech and Debate. He has competed in debate tournaments for three years and has reached octofinals at Berkeley and Stanford and Quarterfinals at Santa Clara University. He coached Foothill Debate to first place at the University of Pacific in the Small School Entries section. He qualified to the Silver Tournament of Champions and is Nationally ranked.
Keerthana Nallamotu
​Founder
​Keerthana is the President of Foothill Model United Nations. She has won 1st place at national and international conferences such as Berkeley MUN, Stanford MUN, CCCMUN, and SCVMUN and 2nd place at Davis MUN. She has also competed in Public Forum debate, reaching semifinals at the Santa Clara University Debate tournament. Along with these, she has won several awards in extemporaneous speech such as Quarterfinalist at the Logan Speech and Debate tournament and Finalist at the Santa Clara University Speech and Debate tournament.
Jaski Halait
Founder​​
Jaskaran Halait served as Co-president of Foothill Speech and Debate in 2019 - 2020 and VP of Outreach the previous year. He’s competed in Speech and Debate throughout high school - primarily in Public Forum Debate and Extemporaneous Speaking. He’s won the Santa Clara Dempsey Cronin Invitational in 2017, and has placed at numerous other national tournaments.