About us

President: Michael Kohn

President Michael Kohn started playing quizbowl in 2018 as an undergraduate at Imperial. He has served on the UKQB committee for four years, most recently as Tournament Supervisor. This year he aims to oversee more exciting UKQB projects with more British writing, more interaction between UKQB and student societies, and aiding more people in progressing from Novice level quiz to regular tournaments. When not studying three and four dimensional topology as part of a PhD in Pure Mathematics at Durham, Michael can usually be found conducting or playing music, racquet sports, reading, or listening to famous albums.

Treasurer: Daniel Lawson

Dan is UKQB’s Treasurer, dealing with finances and transactions between UKQB and universities, and with organisations such as ACF and NAQT. He has been playing quizbowl since he was a fresher at Cambridge, and held various positions on the CUQS Committee between 2017 and 2022. He is now a junior doctor in Cambridge.

Secretary: Jacob Robertson

Jacob Robertson is the Secretary for UKQB having played quizbowl since his first year as an undergraduate at Oxford. He’s now about to enter the third year of a DPhil in Theoretical Physics which means they’ve spent far too long playing quiz. When not editing the science for quiz tournaments or being confused about quantum mechanics, Jacob likes to go climbing, read poetry and watching too much YouTube.

Tournament Supervisor: Andrew Fisher

UKQB Tournaments Supervisor Andrew Fisher has been quizzing since 2019 and has been playing student quizbowl since late 2021. After spending several years working in industry, he is now pursuing a PhD in algebraic topology at the University of Sheffield, and he served as UKQB Communications Officer in 2022-23. Other than thinking about homotopical and homological algebra, you can usually find him bouldering in the Peak District, learning about random things, and getting easy maths questions wrong in quizzes.

Blog Manager: Oscar O'Flanagan

Oscar manages the UKQB blog, having recently finished a physics degree at Imperial College. During his time there he wrote several not-too-biased articles for the student paper documenting the exploits of Imperial's quiz teams, but hopes to be more neutral in this position. Outside of physics and quizzing, he might occasionally play classical guitar, read about the Russian Revolution and play old Total War games.

Outreach Officer: Ali Izzatdust

Ali is the Outreach Officer for UKQB. He played quizbowl for three years throughout his undergraduate degree at Oxford, and is currently completing a master's in Intellectual History at UCL and Queen Mary University of London. When not quizzing or reading political thought, Ali enjoys playing basketball and looking at Renaissance art.

Communications Officer: Ben Russell Jones

Ben Russell Jones is a fourth year philosophy student at Edinburgh. He was part of the Edinburgh team that came runners up at BSQC 2022. This year, he will try to liaise with as many students as possible in order to get them playing quizbowl: the game we love.

Social Media Manager: Jacob McLaughlin

Jacob is the Social Media Manager for UKQB. He has recently finished his degree in Economics and Mathematics at the University of Bristol. Outside of quiz, he plays an unreasonable amount of time playing Football Manager and watching bad reality TV.

Safeguarding Officer: Fatima Sheriff

Fatima is the Safeguarding Officer at UKQB. Formerly of Imperial Quiz Society, including a stint as President, she is enthusiastic about welcoming people into the weird and wonderful world of quiz. She wears many hats (or hijabs) outside of quiz, including freelance film criticism, a varied career in science communication, and her regular job amusing old folks and cats with poetry.

Digital Officer: Vitalijs Brejevs

Vitalijs Brejevs is the Digital Officer and one of the founders of UKQB. He got involved with quizbowl during his master's degree at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and continued playing for Glasgow University throughout his PhD. He is currently in the UK only in spirit, undertaking a postdoc at the University of Vienna.

Ordinary Member: Thomas De Bock

Thomas De Bock is an Ordinary Member of the UKQB committee who served as Outreach Officer for three years. He headed Oxford Brookes Quiz Society from 2015 to 2018 and can still be found in most places where quiz is happening. When quiz is not happening, he is most likely geocaching, playing music, doing genealogy or even more likely working as an engineer in Formula E.

Ordinary Member: Justin Lee

Justin Lee is a UKQB Ordinary Committee Member. He is now doing his third year in a master's degree in chemistry, and is recovering from his tenure as Chair of the Imperial College London Quiz Society. Justin’s non-quiz hobbies include listening to his selection of history podcasts, writing fanfiction about the Redwall series, and lying in bed. When he’s not making the same fried rice over and over again he can be seen doing all three at once.

Ordinary Member: Thomas Hart

Thomas Hart is one of UKQB’s Ordinary Committee Members, focusing on tournament organisation. He is in the final year of an integrated Masters degree in Mathematics at the University of Warwick, and has played quizbowl throughout his time there. When not getting questions about his degree and his religion wrong (which he does with distressing frequency), he can be found cycling, listening to classical music, slowly making his way through his increasingly large pile of unread books and bingewatching MasterChef Australia.

Ordinary Member: Abigail Tan

Abigail is a UKQB Ordinary Committee Member. She has been playing quizbowl for three years while studying for a maths degree at Cambridge. Having worked on a number of tournaments and quizbowl packets over the past few years, Abigail will be head-editing the 2024 iteration of the Cambridge-Oxford Open Tournament (COOT), while in a UKQB capacity she is interested in working on resources to help players make the jump from novice to higher-level quizbowl. Outside of quiz Abigail can often be found reading about ancient history.

Ordinary Member: Rhys Lewis

Rhys is a UKQB ordinary committee member. He is entering his third year studying maths at Cambridge University, where he is the current president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society. When not quizzing or doing his degree (doing should probably be in quotation marks there), he can be found waving his arms about in front of an orchestra or waving his arms about in attempt to hit a cricket ball.

Ordinary Member: Kevin Flanagan

Kevin is a UKQB ordinary committee member. He is in the 4th year of his PhD in artificial intelligence at the University of Bristol, where he is also the Treasurer of the quiz society. Outside of quiz, he can often be found playing badminton or spending too much time on YouTube.

Ordinary Member: Danny Lardner

Danny Lardner is a UKQB Ordinary Committee Member. He started playing quiz(bowl) in 2020 while studying a Geography degree at Sheffield. During that time, he helped to resurrect the Quiz Society at Sheffield and made sure as many people as possible were playing quizbowl. Outside of the above, he spends the rest of his time buying books, playing football, falling off of bouldering walls, or being paid to pack the jam doughnuts at Tesco.

Ordinary Member: Evan Lynch

Evan Lynch is an Ordinary Committee Member and founding member of UKQB. He began his quizzing career whilst studying Natural Sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, and is completing a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Southampton and Diamond Light Source. He plays for the Nomads in the Quiz League of London, for the Mangoes in the Online Quiz League, and competes in various individual formats. He has served as the head editor of multiple UK tournaments, including Cambridge Open, MKULTRA, British Novice and the British Student Quiz Championships.

Ordinary Member: Joseph Krol

Joseph Krol is an Ordinary Member on the UKQB committee, in which role he mainly focuses on tournament organisation. Outside of quiz, his other hobbies include writing, listening to an alarming number of albums, and feeling a vague sense of dread when describing himself in the third person.