May 2025 - ModernBrain Results
Scholars of Speech:
Our students competed in this end-of-season contest at the Little Dynasty school in Irvine, earning our 271st championship for the 2025-2026 season!
Elementary Impromptu: Gold - Emma Tran, Xiaoyan Yang, Silver - Bowen Yin, Emma Ji, Jay Aggarwal, Bronze - Kyler Ji, Jason Zhu, Helen Yang, Eric Song
Elementary SPAR: Gold - Sunny Tian, Jay Aggarwal, Victoria Wan, Silver - Helen Yang, Bowen Yin, Kyler Ji, Bronze - Jason Zhu, Xiaoyan Yang, Ansen Yang, Ellie Wan, Biran Li, Eric Song
Elementary Public Address: Gold - Jordan Kim, Silver - Emma Tran, Bronze - Nayomi Zhang
Elementary Acting: Gold - Victoria Wan, Silver - Sara Parekh, Bronze - Emma Tran, Ellie Wan
Middle School SPAR: Gold - Jaden Hong, Silver - Allen Chen, Bronze - Adrian Qiao
Middle School Impromptu: Gold - Jaden Hong, Silver - Tianni Gong, Bronze - Daniel Cui
Middle School Acting: Gold - Tianni Gong, Silver - Luna Hu, Bronze - Dipanjali Suresh
High School SPAR: Gold - Harjashan Sahota
High School Public Address: Gold - Harneal Sahota
NIETOC (National Individual Events Tournament of Champions):
We won a school sweepstakes award for Act II schools, which is the most sweepstakes points any academy has ever received at the most competitive speech contest in America. In fact, no other academy has received ANY sweepstakes award at NIETOC in the last three years. We've won two.
Each category started with hundreds to thousands of contestants. Most did not even qualify to the contest, let alone advance.
Informative: 2nd - Kathleen Hong, Quarterfinals - Meera Kalluraya (Mitty)
Impromptu: 8th - Izzie Tran, Quarterfinals - Kelly Liu
Expository: Quarterfinals - Izzie Tran
Prose: Quarterfinals - Vicky Yang
POI: Quarterfinals - Natalie Hong, Pranya Nagpal (Evergreen)
Oratory: Octofinals - Luna Bouhairi
Empire Spring League Championship:
ModernBrain is in FIRST PLACE going into elimination rounds for the Empire mock trial championship (out of 70+ teams).
Christiana Garcia, Mira Jiang, Ethan Bai, and Jaden Hong (eighth grader!) all received PERFECT ranks as attorneys and witnesses.
California Middle School State Championship:
We were BACK-TO-BACK STATE CHAMPIONS here--the #1 program out of the 50 best school teams and academies in California. We had as many top two placements as the second and third-best teams COMBINED.
Extemp: 1st - Jiayou Liu
Informative: 1st - Sofia Patel
Poetry: 1st - Shivani Bansal
Policy: 1st - Bella Tan/Madeline Jun, 2nd - Ethan Yan/Mia Tian, 3rd - Johnny Wald/Sarah Wald, 4th - Benjie Wald/Oliver Cha
Congress: 1st - Brian Tan, 9th - Derek Song; Semifinals - Celina Wang, Leah Feigenbaum, Nish Wadhwa
Public Forum: 2nd - Elizabeth Lu/Elsa Zhou; Doubles - Kylie Zhang/Audrey Ballon, Ivan Zhang/Juliette Scott, Ryan Kong/Alexa Kim
Oratory: 2nd - Sofia Patel, 5th - Irene Cho; Semifinals - Yuqiao Shao, Sofia Patel, Rachel Huang, Irene Cho; Quarterfinals - Nathan Kung, Pranamya Adhitham
Prose: 2nd - Luna Hu, 4th - Tianni Gong
Storytelling: 2nd - Ramsey Ma
Impromptu: 3rd - Yuqiao Shao, 4th - Oliver Dai, 5th - Melody Mo, 7th - Sissi Wang; Semifinals - Maribelle Ganelis, Pranamya Adhitham, Tianni Gong, ; Quarterfinals - Jiayou Liu, Evan Liu, Camryn Mai
Dramatic: 5th - Camryn Mai
Declamation: Semifinals - Sissi Wang, Dipanjali Suresh
Lincoln-Douglas: Triples - Maximus Wang
Middle School Tournament of Champions:
Congratulations to our students on, once again, taking home championships at this national contest! We have been the most consistently successful speech, LD and Policy squad at the MSTOC back to back.
Impromptu: 1st - Avelyn Jing (Harker), 3rd - Siri Chundru (Harker)
Oratory: 1st - Siri Chundru (Harker)
Extemp: 1st - Avelyn Jing (Harker)
Lincoln-Douglas: 1st - Jonah Kim (Vanguard), Octos - Jason Rong, Doubles - Rena Zhuang, Alex Huang
Lincoln-Douglas Speakers: 2nd - Jonah Kim, 3rd - Isa Dash
Policy: Semifinals - Charlie Pan/Stella Pellier, Quarterfinals - Melody Wu/Evan Choe, William Lin/Nesara Shetty, Octofinals - Patrick Quon/Tony Li, Eugene Kim/Lucas Yang, Gloria He/Daniel Lu
Policy Speakers: 1st - William Lin, 2nd - Nesara Shetty, 5th - Charlie Pan, 7th - Stella Pellier
Congress: Semifinals - Carrie Rao
California High School State Championship:
We're proud of our students from across the state for earning their placements in the top 18 students in Califronia (out of many hundreds of initial entrants).
Impromptu: 2nd - Meera Kalluraya (Mitty, sophomore), 3rd - Luna Bouhairi (Northwood, junior)
Informative: 7th - Kathleen Hong (Troy, sophomore), 13th - Izzie Tran (Laguna Hills, freshman)
National Extemp: 11th - Claire Liu (Portola, junior)
POI: 3rd - Natalie Hong (Sunny Hills, freshman), 13th - Pranya Nagpal (Evergreen, junior)
Kathleen also took 2nd in INFO and Natalie 3rd in POI at the Cal Async Scrimmage contest.
Model United Nations Results from the last few months...
LBIMUN (March 29, 2025):
Adrian Qiao - Outstanding
Aly Kakajanov - Commendation
Peyton Tan - Outstanding and Research
Pyron Tan - Research
NHSCMUN (April 26, 2025):
Jason Zhang - Outstanding
Nanki Mattewal - Outstanding
Logan Cho - Best Delegate
Anthony Liu - Outstanding
Conrad Chow - Outstanding
Liz Hsiu & Hector Geng - Outstanding
Claremont McKenna MUN (April 26-27, 2025):
Kaz Karimi - Diplomatic Commendation
Daniel Dong & Drew Zhang - Honorable Mention
Linda Frazier & Elim Sun - Outstanding
Emma Wallis - Best Delegate
