Affiliated Coaches and Partners
Rhetorica Debate works with coaches and teachers from around the world in order to match students with the perfect instructor. Our coaches are current or former high level university debaters who bring energy, experience, and an insider’s eye to competitive debate training. Each coach is also matched with a full time educator in order to round out their experience with pedagogical strategy. Our teaching teams bring online classes to the next level.
Imogen Edwards-Lawrence
Imogen holds a degree in Classics from Trinity College, University of Oxford, and has been coaching debating for nearly six years. While at Oxford she not only served as Deputy Training Officer for the Oxford Union Society, but was on the Organisational Committee for Oxford Schools, Oxford Women’s Open and the Oxford Intervarsity Competition, Europe’s second largest debating competition. As a debater she has judged the knockout rounds of nearly forty competitions, including the Oxford and Cambridge Intervarsity competitions among many others, and as a speaker has won two competitions, spoken in the finals of thirteen more, and been named a top ten speaker nine times.
However, the majority of her expertise comes from the UK schools debating circuit, serving on the Chief Adjudication Panel of seven British schools’ competitions, as well as most recently the 2020 edition of the International Competition for Young Debaters. She has coached the majority of the members of the current English National Debate Team for 20128-2020 (who placed 3rd at the World Championships in 2019) and as a domestic coach, her students in the 2018-2019 academic year broke at nearly 20 competitions, collected 30 top speaker awards, and were crowned champions at 6 competitions, a record for that year in the British schools circuit. She has also worked extensively with the ESU, coaching the Advanced Parliamentary stream at Debate Academy 2019, as well as leading masterclasses at Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced level as part of the ESU Discover Your Voice programme for students aged between 7 and 18.
Outside of debating coaching, Imogen has extensive tuition and mentoring experience, working to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds with applications to top UK universities, and teaching drama and musical theatre, and was President of the Trinity College Players while studying in Oxford.
Evan Streams
Evan coaches the middle school parliamentary debate and high school public forum debate programs at the Dalton School. In his time there, students have qualified for the Tournament of Champions every year, and the National Speech and Debate Championship twice. At the middle school level, Dalton’s most recent year was also their most successful ever, with students coming in first place at four different tournaments and amassing a record-breaking number of wins.
Evan has coached debate for 10 years, during which time his students have earned hundreds of different awards. He also spent two years in China managing the National High School Debate League of China, where he ran tournaments, created an international debate curriculum, and wrote a debate textbook. He also regularly teaches at the Dartmouth Debate Institute and the Westfield Academy of Debate, Model UN, and Leadership. In his own career as a debater, Evan competed in six different debate formats: American Parliamentary, British Parliamentary, New England Parliamentary, Policy, Public Forum, and CDA Extemporaneous Policy. During this time he finished first at multiple tournaments, including Connecticut’s state championship. He currently studies philosophy at Columbia University.
KC Caswell
KC has nearly a decade of competitive experience in forensics and has been helping organize debate competitions and camps since 2014. In 2016, KC founded a debate program in Romania called “Transylvanian Debates” that reached over 700 students from grade school to university. As a student at The King’s College, KC served as Vice President of The King’s Debate Society as they helped run practices, run public-facing events, and coach and mentor students new to parliamentary debate. More recently, KC has been honored to work with Rhetorica and Speyer coaching parliamentary debate for students preparing for middle school competition.
As a competitor, KC has debated and judged parliamentary debate across North America and Europe, advancing as a speaker to elimination rounds in regional and national-level tournaments, including the 2019 United States University Debating Championship and the 2018 Women and Gender Minorities Championship.
Outside of debate, KC has helped run high-level events with the Council on Foreign Relations and currently applies their experience in rhetoric to connecting government agencies with private-sector solutions and innovation with Gi4, LLC. In their spare time, they enjoy studying foreign languages and running.
KC holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from The King’s College in New York.
Tim Lewis
Tim Lewis is a history teacher and middle and high school debate coach at Blind Brook Middle/High School in Rye Brook, NY. Tim’s passion for debate goes back to his time as a competitive debater at Joel Barlow High School and Bard College, where he co-founded the Bard College Parliamentary Debate Team. While gaining his Masters in Education at Harvard University, he developed curricula with the Debate Across the Curriculum Initiative of the Boston Debate League. His students at Blind Brook have several achievements to their names, including winning the 2018 Vassar College Invitational, placing 2nd at the 2019 Trinity Invitational, placing 3rd at the 2020 Loomis Chaffee Invitational, 2nd Place Speaker at the 2019 West Hill High School Tournament, 1st place Speaker at the 2020 Weston High School Tournament, and 3rd place team at the Greenwich High School Tournament. His middle school team debuted this year and won top novice speaker at their first ever tournament.
Previously, Tim has coached with the Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School, and he led several teams to awards with the New York City Urban Debate League. He was the former Academic Director of the National High School Debate League of China. In this role, he coached several successful teams, including the 2015 NHSDLC national champions and finalists in the International Division of the 2015 Harvard Invitational. Through his work assisting the Joel Barlow Debate Team and the Dartmouth Debate Institute, he has also coached the 2008, 2009, and 2017 Connecticut State Champions in the Varsity Division, as well as the 2018 state champions in the Novice Division.
He co-edited the first edition of the official NHSDLC textbook, Speak Up, and has worked at numerous debate camps and clinics. Outside of his passion for coaching debate, Tim has also coached award winners in Model UN and drama, enjoys teaching and performing improvisational comedy, and is training for a half marathon. He is based in Harlem.
Darcey blake
Darcey is an accomplished public speaking and debate coach, as well as the Technology Integration Specialist at St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s, and an active member of the scientific community. Whether coaching debate teams, teaching students to use scientific data software, or publishing articles on wild disease transmission, Darcey uses her passion for communication to provoke change and inspire others.
Darcey leads Rhetorica’s After School Debate Program curricular coordination, teaching lower and middle school debate in several private schools throughout Manhattan as well as working with partner coaches. Previously, she instructed students in of public speaking throughout cities in Thailand, Mongolia, and South Korea. Darcey is the proud founder of the first debate program at a public high school in Nakae, Thailand, where her students went on to receive first place in a national speech competition. In South Korea, she worked as a private speech and language coach for top executives in the corporate world. This included aiding in presentation preparation for multinational corporate CEOs.
Darcey believes that effective communication can transverse cultural divides to create lasting change in the world. Darcey enjoys teaching her students the technical and communication skills required to solve problems and speak their minds.