ILR Team Wins Portuguese Debate World Championships

Brittany Garcia ’19 and David Alatorre Lopez MILR ’20 won the Portuguese Debate World Championship in Lisbon, Portugal, on Sunday.

The Cornell Speech and Debate duo prevailed over teams from North America, Latin America, Europe and Africa.

Both debaters are fluent in English and Spanish, and recently began learning Portuguese as a third language.

Garcia, a founding member of Cornell’s Spanish debate team, intends to use her ILR education and debate experience to pursue a career in international policy with a focus on labor and education. Next year, she will be working in Vietnam to establish one of the country’s first university debate programs.