The Best High School Model UN Delegates and Club Leaders of 2021-2022 recognizes exceptional high school students for their Model UN accomplishments at conferences as delegates and/or for their leadership within their Model UN clubs as club leaders.
Students were nominated by their faculty advisors or peers from around the world during an open call period for nominations in late April, and this list of names was selected by a BestDelegate.com editorial panel. Students could be recognized for both categories. Bios were written by the nominators.
Congratulations to all the delegates and club leaders mentioned below, and to all delegates and club leaders around the world for their efforts in bringing out the best in each other in Model United Nations this school year.
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The Best High School Model UN Delegates (alphabetical)
Adam Akan, Saint Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Adam Akan led the Saint Ignatius College Prep MUN team to their first undefeated season, going 8-0 over the year. He was a major part of the SIMUN team’s win at NAIMUN, both in committee and outside the committee room. In addition, he served as the Secretary-General for the SIMUN XX conference.
Adrija Jana, Mahadevi Birla World Academy (India)
Adrija Jana delegate has taken part in more than 22 conferences in the last two years, and has represented the school in many of them. She is an experienced International Press (IP) delegate who has won awards in more than 90% of the conferences attended. The main plus point of the delegate is that winning in a conference is not the most important aspect for her. Rather, she takes on every new conference to compete with her own self and enhance her skills and recognises the outcome as a lesson learnt. This healthy competitive spirit has established her as an aspiring figure for many emerging MUNners in schools.
Anaya Raikar, The Winsor School (Massachusetts)
Anaya Raikar began her Model UN journey at Best Delegate, and has since participated in various Best Delegate conferences and one conference at Boston University. Anaya mastered her writing, research, and negotiation skills to win awards at every conference she attended in the last year. Her BosMUN chair noted her untouched ability to lead a bloc and speak without hesitation in particular. An active member of her school’s team, Anaya often motivates her peers to make the most of their conference experience! She is driven to collaborate with fellow delegates to develop stellar resolutions to solve various worldwide problems.
Anirudh Krishnan, PSBB Siruseri (India)
Anirudh, in spite of having an inherent stutter, participated in more than 20 conferences and won more than 10 awards, including at Stanford MUN, where he attended staying up all night, while also sick and having a Physics exam to study for. His dedication was shown throughout the year in attending more than six conferences straight, balancing it with Debate and School, in addition to other extracurricular activities. The fact that he has managed to win these awards despite having a speech impediment, while being the Head Delegate of his school and mentoring his juniors, teaching them diplomacy and paperwork, setting the frameworks for his school’s delegation and leading the delegation at various conferences where they won many awards, shows that he deserves to win this award.
Annabelle Graham, Saint Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Annabelle Graham has over 12 gavels in her short time with Model UN. She exemplifies clean diplomacy and kindness while maintaining a level of competitiveness that is unique. Her ability to think, speak, write and adapt on the spot is years ahead of every other delegate she is competing against. Her cunning crisis arcs are both creative, yet practical, and she often navigates through crisis updates with ease. Although a fiery, passionate delegate, she remains a cool demeanor, often helping other, less experienced delegates. Her technical ability with parli-pro, combined with her entertaining speeches, make for an engaging, thought provoking, and enjoyable performance, every time she comes to the podium.
Aryan Vaidya, Northville High School (Michigan)
Aryan constantly performs amazingly at conferences, loves speaking and Model UN with a genuine passion, and supports teammates and fellow delegates greatly. During this Model UN season, Aryan helped delegates improve their committee performance by giving advice and possessing a genuine care for spreading love for Model UN. He also is an avid speaker, participating in speaking competitions from a young age, and finding a passion in public speaking and debating. His conference performance is a testament to this, where at NAIMUN he was awarded with Outstanding Delegate.
Boyan Zheng, High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies (New York)
Although Boyan has only recently joined his MUN club (early fall 2021), he has worked tirelessly to constantly challenge himself as a delegate. Additionally, he is his club’s VP of instruction and historian. Both roles require him to be extremely active in cabinet, and he executes these roles to the best of his ability. He rarely ever misses a meeting and has worked with delegates on their speeches as well as speeches until the early morning. His growth is truly immeasurable as it is constantly growing and it is reflected in his efforts in committee. This past March, Boyan and his double delegate Natalie won the award of distinction in their DISEC committee during NHSMUN. Furthermore, the club as a whole won an award of distinction for our research and preparation, which would not have been possible without cabinet members like Boyan. During their own online conference, DLMUNC, he volunteered to be chair and trained for months to properly embody this role. The delegates that participated in his committee could not stop complimenting him as he was not only extremely knowledgeable about parli-pro but he efficiently guided committee for over 7 hours. In conclusion, this is only the beginning for Boyan’s MUN career and his team cannot wait to see how he progresses in his journey.
Felipe Carvalho, Curso e Colégio Leffler (Brazil)
Felipe not only participated in renowned conferences, but he totally reinvented the concept of his country, Brazil, participating in these events. Participating in the Harvard MUN for three consecutive years, he was awarded all three years, being the first and only in his country to achieve this. In addition, Felipe trained other delegates through the Instituto Diplomun, an organization in which he is president, and instructed 15 students who were also awarded at HMUN and Yale MUN. Lastly, Felipe created and served as president of the largest MUN held in Latin America in the last year, DiploMUN Online 2021.
Gabriella Behar, Doral Academy Preparatory (Florida)
Since the beginning of her high school MUN journey in her freshman year, Gabriella Behar has always exemplified ambition, courage, persistence, and passion. Over the years she has grown so much and has become better as every conference passed. Not only is she one of the best delegates on the circuit because of the awards, but her skills and leadership have built her to become such a confident and talented delegate and person. Now as a senior and president of the Doral Academy Model UN team, her success has allowed her to bring the team to its own great success, and no progress in the team would have been possible without her.
Hazen Griffin, Kettle Run High School (Virginia)
Hazen is the President of the Kettle Run High School MUN team. In his four years, he has won six gavels (five from college conferences), two Diplomacy Awards (from American University) and countless other awards, but his true leadership comes from creating an inclusive team. Kettle Run is the only high school in Fauquier County that offers MUN. Hazen has advocated to the school board and his advisor to open up the Kettle Run club to all county high school students. To him, MUN is not about the awards, but creating opportunities for students who otherwise could not experience MUN.
Hunter Lund, St. John Neumann High School (Florida)
Hunter is passionate about current events and politics and plans to major in Political Science in college. He entered the MUN club as a freshman in its first year of existence at the school–2020-2021, only attending one virtual conference that year. Following this conference, Hunter became even more determined to understand the process of MUN so that he could help his teammates and receive acknowledgement that even the smallest of schools, 300 students, could successfully compete with large, accomplished schools. This year, Hunter led his team to train with Best Delegate. Hunter was diligent in research and preparation, not just for himself, but for every member. He would encourage, question, and keep members accountable. His club attended 3 conferences this year including SWFLMUN and NHSMUN, where the team came back with two awards –– a team-wide research and preparation award and one individual Best Delegate award won by Hunter himself. All of his late nights, early mornings (for Saturday training) and desire to understand the inner workings of the UN so that one day he could make a difference, was rewarded.
Ilinca Drondoe, Mosaic Explore (New Hampshire)
Ilinca’s MUN experience started 6 years ago with her first summer intensive through Best Delegate. Since then, Ilinca attended 14 conferences, winning 14 awards, and considers Model UN one of the most valuable, key experiences throughout high school and the reason she decided to study International Relations in college. This past year, Ilinca attended SSUNS, BOSMUN and EagleMUNC, winning a gavel award at each. As a delegate, she proved that winning doesn’t have to involve practicing aggressive strategies: her staple was quality research combined with a diplomatic and collaborative approach. These past two years, she was also the President of her Model UN team, supporting her peers with feedback on position papers and performance strategies. She also served as a Media Associate for the Model UN Institute in the 2019-2020 year. Ilinca is headed to Wellesley College, where she is going to major in International Relations – Political Science, and Peace and Justice Studies.
Kanishka Kataria, Veda Vyasa DAV Public School (India)
Kanishka Kataria, an enthusiastic girl from New Delhi, India, keeps her life to the best. She has been a proactive participant in MUN debates for the last 4 years and has participated and won in 15+ conferences. She wishes to serve the international citizens in her futuristic utopia. Her hobbies include writing, researching, and being close to nature. She is a proactive high-schooler, who hopes to step out of the four walls of her room to the fantasy world of exhilaration and liberty.
Krish Budhrani, South Island Distance Education School (Canada)
Beginning his MUN career in Grade 6 as a note passer, Krish Budhrani continued his Model UN passion through Grade 9, where he won awards in 4 conferences hosted by Best Delegate –– 3 Honorable Mentions in 3 General Assemblies, and 1 Best Delegate in a Crisis committee, including an award during Best Delegates’ Tournament of Champions.
Kriya Shah, North Penn High School (Pennsylvania)
Kriya is a first-year club member who went above and beyond this year. In her very first crisis committee at WAMUNC, she took home the first Best Delegate award that our school has ever gotten, having gone into the debate not even knowing how to write a crisis note! Her leadership and initiative in her small, casual Model UN club truly made a big impact on her peers, and she cares a lot about educating and helping others learn.
Lucia Lopez Paniagua, Santa Cruz Cooperative School (Bolivia)
Lucia is a forward thinking student with a passion for collaborative problem solving. In MUN, she has shown a high level of focus and willingness to assist her peers to encourage the success of their position by listening and giving constructive feedback. Her determination, a collaborative problem solving skill set, and most importantly kindness has helped to cultivate a wonderful learning environment and experience.
Miya Rosenthal, Calabasas High School (California)
Miya is one of the best MUN delegates on the high school circuit. She is especially adept at crisis committees, winning 3 consecutive gavels at McKenna MUN (Claremont McKenna), BruinMUN (UCLA), and NAIMUN (Georgetown) in crisis committees of varying topics. But she is equally adept outside of crisis, winning Outstanding Delegate in a 180 person GA at BMUN (Berkeley). She has never failed to win an award in her committee within the last two years.
Natalie Bruckert, Saint Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Natalie works extremely hard prior to every conference she attends. This year, she went to almost ten conferences and won awards at every conference, including multiple gavels. She is a competitive delegate in both crisis and ga committees alike. Natalie has been a huge inspiration all year as she has taught delegates how to lead blocs, give effective speeches, and come up with creative solution ideas because of her. She is also an extremely supportive, positive, and kind team member who is always willing to help anyone on her team.
Netra Easwaran, Horace Greeley High School (New York)
Netra Easwaran is a skilled delegate who has won several ‘Best Delegate’ awards at prestigious collegiate and high-school conferences, including Yale MUN, MIT MUN, Cambridge MUN, and the Tournament of Champions. An MUN veteran, Netra’s committee experience ranges from Security Council to the International Court of Justice, where she received the ‘Best Advocate Award.’ She is well-versed in three distinct MUN formats, namely THIMUN, Parliamentary, and UNA-USA procedure. Netra’s prowess as a delegate lies in her ability to fluidly transition between the roles of a leader and listener, deliver impassioned arguments, and utilize her extroverted nature to encourage inter-delegate collaboration.
Noah Steinmetz, Edison High School (California)
This year, Noah attended three conferences and won Best Delegate at each (LAIMUN, Surf City MUN and PhilMUN). Noach also served as one of the Secretaries-General and helped run two separate conferences that collectively hosted over 1,000 delegates from Southern California. Additionally, during his four years at Edison, Noah has won an additional two Best Delegate awards as an underclassman as well as five Outstanding awards and multiple research awards.
Siddharth Jayakrishnan, North Allegheny Senior High (Pennsylvania)
Although receiving awards in Model United Nations is a gratifying token of one’s hard work, the “best delegate” is the delegate whose diplomacy extends beyond committee time. Siddharth Jayakrishnan does not see MUN as a singular event to complete and later forget; rather, he sees it as an opportunity for the youth to take part in something greater than themselves. Siddharth’s diplomacy has not only earned him two Tournament of Champion titles, an award at Harvard MUN, and Best Delegate awards at numerous national tournaments hosted by Ivy Leagues and UC schools, but it has also earned him the privilege to be the mouthpiece for those less spoken, and allow all people to contribute to active solution making in today’s communities.
Simon Rosenbaum, Vermont Commons School (Vermont)
MUN for Simon has never been an individual pursuit. Always encouraging people to attend conferences and providing opportunities to advance their skills, Simon has been quite literally the lifeblood that transformed what was a small and faltering MUN program at Vermont Commons into a program with a bright future. He balances exceptional achievement individually with the health of the program masterfully. This year, Simon attended BosMUN (verbal commendation), EagleMUNC, ClarkMUN (Outstanding Delegate), DartMUN (Best Delegate), and CMUNC (Best Delegate), as well as gaveling at high school hosted conferences. He served as the Head Delegate for the Vermont Commons School team, and managed younger teammates’ needs while competing in committee. He also designed and led a simulation for freshman at his school in JCC format to engage them in MUN.
Suri Yang, The John Cooper School (Texas)
The dedication and passion that Suri Yang has towards this club have been made clear since the very beginning. Not only does she thoroughly prepare for every single weekly meeting, but she also researches conferences to attend and workshops that can be put on so that she can constantly grow and better herself as a delegate. In the one year Suri has been doing MUN both in and outside of school, she has attended multiple conferences, deservingly won awards at these conferences, and put herself forward as a leader in our club and school community. Not only does she try to improve her own skills as a delegate, but she also works collectively with those around her to foster a safe and welcoming environment for her peers.
The Best High School Model UN Club Leaders (alphabetical)
Aaron Daudert, Northville High School (Michigan)
Aaron truly encapsulates the genuine spirit of Model UN being an amazing Secretary-General, seeking to spread the passion and love for Model UN throughout the community. By doing so, he gave other delegates an opportunity to pursue the passion of teaching middle school MUN. Overall, Aaron is an amazing Secretary-General, who seeks to inspire a love for Model UN, while supporting and strengthening his delegation.
Adam Akan, St. Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Adam Akan has been a four-year dedicated member of our very large and very competitive Saint Ignatius Model UN team. His school participates in 12 conferences per year, including 1-day high school conferences and travel multi-day conferences. Adam has participated in most of these conferences over his four year career and has won an award in nearly every conference. He has won top awards at NAIMUN, FIMUN, EAGLEMUNC, CIMUN, MICSUN, NDMUN, WUMUNS, BRUINMUN, Stanford, MUNI, and CMUNCE in addition to our Chicago area 1-day conferences. Adam has served as a two-year member of the SIMUN Executive Board and served as the Secretary General for SIMUN XX (Nov 2021). Adam has been the leader of his team who has motivated our delegates to give 100% dedication to preparation and performance in committee. As a result of his efforts, the SIMUN team won Best Large Delegation at every conference we attended, making them 8-0 on the year. Adam lives and breathes MUN and will be continuing to participate in MUN in college.
Adrija Jana, Mahadevi Birla World Academy (India)
Adrija Jana has acted in the capacity of the Deputy Secretary General and EB member of the International Press of the MUN Club, taking ner school’s MUN conference to new heights. As a DSG, she was always aware and alert, going beyond her responsibilities to ensure a smooth conference. She was also responsible for the training of the new cohort of school delegates, which she did timely and efficiently. As an EB member, she was competent and had presence of mind, handling the committee with wit and dedication that earned the praise of and satisfied both internal and external delegates. Moreover, she allowed everyone in the team equal space to express their opinions and contribute to the organization as a whole. She and her team led the first ever inter-school MUN conference of her school and brought it to a successful completion.
Anirudh Krishnan, PSBB Siruseri (India)
Anirudh founded the MUN Club at his school, and served as Head Delegate, leading the school delegation at various MUN conferences across India. He mentored the delegation which resulted in them winning various awards and set the framework for an active and alive MUN Club in the Chennai Circuit. All this was done in spite of everything going online, and in the midst of a tough, uncertain academic year. He organized mentoring sessions online, teaching his juniors about paperwork and speeches, and even won awards himself, including at Stanford MUN, staying awake to partake in exciting Crisis Committees. A new set of students have taken to love MUN and participate in the activity because of Anirudh.
Audrey He, Josh Respler, Rachel Hodes, Zakaria Djahed, Miami Country Day School (Florida)
These board members worked tirelessly to recruit and train new members, with the club growing from 12 active members to 37, all of whom participated in at least two conferences — 3 online, 4 in person. They were the first interscholastic team at school to travel overnight in January, and met with school administrators multiple times to convince them it would work, with everyone testing before during and after. Despite a team with relatively little experience, they took home 18 awards this season, including two Best Delegates.
Brianna Le, Daniel Boone Area High School (Pennsylvania)
Brianna has been the club president this year and has navigated the club through some challenging waters. She has encouraged an inexperienced club to participate in interscholastic debate and has recruited other students to join her in debating. She laid a good framework and created high hopes for the club next year.
Christopher Bobby Buyalos and Miya Rosenthal, Calabasas High School (California)
Bobby and Miya have been the Co-Presidents of Calabasas High School’s MUN program. They have transitioned the club from online back into person, and doubled the club’s size through rigorous recruitment and training (expanding from 80 members to 160 members). They also planned and executed the first in-person conference hosted at Calabasas High School, which served all MUN teams in the West San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. They ran two travel teams and lead the team to Best Small Delegation at GauchoMUN and NAIMUN.
Elizabeth Delp, International Studies Preparatory Academy (Florida)
Elizabeth made lesson plans for each of the club meetings before club season even began, and coordinated unceasingly with the club sponsor to accomplish goals. From club rush to making power points and planning the conference field trip with the club advisor and teaching the lingo and procedures of Model UN, she put her best effort into everything she did. She listened to the opinions of others, and adapted her plans to what the club members, other officers, and club sponsor needed. She also addressed many concerns of the club members who were new in regards to conferences and position papers. It can be seen that she has a true passion for this club from the time she spends planning for it, and her personality is warm and welcoming. She has done so much for the club and provided the future club leaders with all her resources, knowledge, and advice.
Elizabeth Fowler, Barbers Hill High School (Texas)
Elizabeth “Libby” Fowler is the founder and student sponsor of the Barbers Hill chapter of Model UN. Libby was faced with the difficult task of leading the organization while being heavily involved in debate, UIL, drill team, and other extracurriculars, along with having to juggle a heavy workload of challenging AP courses. But despite having so many responsibilities on her plate, she was able to lead Barbers Hill’s first-ever Model UN team to success at the Houston Area Model UN conference in January, also earning herself the Best Position Paper award in her committee.
Gabriella Behar, Doral Academy Preparatory (Florida)
Gabriella has always cared about her club since she joined and she never let anyone bring her down. She never let the titles or roles of leadership define who she was nor was it her main goal. Her goal has always been to make Doral Academy Model UN the best team on the circuit and to be the change she wished to see in the world. As she has been treasurer, and now President, it is clear that she was always an integral leader on the team as she prioritized the success of others over her own. Gabriella has always considered MUN as one of her homes since it has brought her to become such a great leader and a fantastic President.
Hazen Griffin, Kettle Run High School (Virginia)
Hazen is the President of the Kettle Run High School MUN team. In his four years, he has won six gavels (five from college conferences), two Diplomacy Awards (from American University) and countless other awards, but his true leadership comes from creating an inclusive team. Kettle Run is the only high school in Fauquier County that offers MUN. Hazen has advocated to the school board and his advisor to open up the Kettle Run club to all county high school students. His leadership has now created opportunities for students who otherwise could not experience MUN.
Natalie Bruckert, Saint Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Natalie Bruckert was our high school conference’s Director General. Not only is she an incredibly skilled delegate with no limit to what she can achieve, but she is also a kind person to her core. In the times when I have felt left out in Model UN or school as a whole, Natalie has always gone the extra mile to welcome delegates and cheer them on, even if they are competing against each other in committee. Natalie has garnered many awards during her MUN career, which is undoubtedly due to her strong work ethic and preparation.
Natalie Guo, High School for Language and Diplomacy (New York)
Natalie first started off as her club’s marketing manager, but she was later promoted to VP of Logistics in a span of a few months. She was promoted due to her leadership skills in committee and in cabinet. Furthermore, her can-do attitude always inspires those around her and she always makes sure to guide those in need. Natalie has always been very mature and takes all of her cabinet responsibilities seriously, which she is entrusted with things like planning club trips and conferences.
Nina Ranalli, St Ignatius College Prep (Illinois)
Following COVID, many delegates felt as though they did not know anyone on their team. However, Nina Ranalli really takes the time to get to know the delegates on her team, mentoring them throughout the year. She always offers to give advice or FaceTime whenever delegates need, helping build crisis arcs and strengthen delegates’ skills. Nina is a very smart, kind, and a great leader!
Noosha Aval, Lorne Park Secondary School (Canada)
Selfless. That word alone doesn’t do justice in representing Noosha Aval as a leader, MUN president, or friend. She is the leader who gets supervisors for conferences during a board-wide strike and cares more about members learning the activity than adding another gavel to her collection. She’s the person who mentors students until they’re confident enough to speak. Selflessness truly shines in everything Noosha does.
Samuel Knijnik, Deleglobe (Brazil)
After coming back from HMUN, Samuel started planning huge endeavors to amplify the protagonismo of the whole nation of Brazil in the MUN scope. With that in mind, he founded Deleglobe, the first Brazilian institution to ever organize a UNA-USA conference in Brazil, where he also received two local MUN clubs to be trained for HMUN and YMUN. After tireless efforts, he prepared more than 20 students from scratch during the whole year, and 100% of those who made it to the US got an award at HMUN, and 60% won an award at YMUN. He made a revolution for our whole country when it comes to MUN.
Saqib Khan and Raphael Sirjue, Sewanhaka High School (New York)
Saqib and Raphael worked very hard to train delegates, helping them write position papers, answering any questions they have, and guiding them to win awards at conferences. They are extremely patient and kind towards club members, bringing sunshine to a dull room filled with people. They are fantastic club officers and accomplished delegates.
