WUDL is growing like crazy, and to support all of this exciting growth, we’re proud to announce two new members to the WUDL staff for the 2025 season

Sarah Hill: 

Sarah comes to WUDL from Seattle, (the “other” Washington :p) with a wealth of experience working in the political and non-profit spaces doing programming, development, and volunteer engagement. In her previous position, she supported a youth workforce development program in a variety of roles, including Volunteer Management. 

A former high school debater, Sarah debated in college for Webster University, winning the state championship in Missouri. Most recently, she’s coached at Seattle Academy for the past two seasons, She credits speech and debate as a formative influence, and is eager to empower more young people to participate. 

You’ll see Sarah all over the WUDL community — focused on recruiting and training volunteers to serve as judges and coaches. She’ll work with corporate partners to support volunteer days, and work closely with our Advisory Board and PTA to support their volunteerism efforts. She’ll also take a programmatic role, supporting schools and visiting practices when possible. 

Dennis Martinez:

Dennis is a WUDL alumni, who started debating for Northwestern High School as a sophomore. He won the JV division at Districts as a 1st year debater, and represented WUDL at Nationals as a senior, finishing as the 4th seed at the UDNC. He also won awards as the first WUDL team to debate in Spanish, winning the Harvard University Invitational his senior year in Spanish. 

Dennis just graduated from UMD with an economics degree, where he served as a TA and conducted research. He stayed involved in the WUDL community, coaching at College Park Academy and Columbia Heights Education Campus over the last few seasons, serving as an instructor at the Matthew Harris Ornstein Summer Debate Institute, and joining the Travel Team on many a weekend trip. Lately, he’d also taken on the role of Debate En Español (DEE) Coach, helping students participate in DEE events the last two seasons and working with WUDL staff to design the DEE program. 

You’ll see Dennis around the WUDL community in several capacities — he’ll run National League tournaments, as we launch our conference system, do recruitment, coach training, and school support, especially around Debate en Español, and continue to support the Travel Team. 

We are excited to have the WUDL family grow to 7(!) staff, an eventuality that didn’t feel possible when we started out 10 years ago with me trying to coach all of the schools myself. 

Please give Dennis and Sarah a warm welcome when you run into them during the season!