The skills that students build through Speech and Debate are valued in every sector and apply in any workplace. Through site visits, career conversations, internships, and mentorships, the SVUDL Advisory Committee helps interested students and alumni build the social and professional capital and the networks they need to pursue the careers they choose.
Grace Lam is a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI, where she works on making Codex useful for hardware design and engineering. Her perspective is especially valuable to SVUDL students, who have encouraged the Committee to broaden its view beyond traditional legal roles to all kinds of careers.
“Debate taught me how to ask better questions, think through different perspectives, and speak up with confidence. Those skills have stayed with me throughout my career in AI. I’m excited to join SVUDL’s Advisory Committee to help students explore careers in technology and connect with people and opportunities they might not otherwise have access to,” Grace Lam said.
Grace Lam’s own debate story shows what preparation can do. She won first place in Student Congress at Santa Clara University in 2018. She also helped establish Palo Alto High School’s Congressional Debate program, which grew to more than 30 members.
As a junior, Grace traveled to Arizona State University to compete, serving as captain of the Congressional Debate team. Preparing for her event took more than 15 hours and covered more than 25 current events topics. The team, which specialized in Speech, Lincoln Douglas Debate, and Congressional Debate, sent eight varsity members to the three-day tournament over winter break, where 160 high schools from across the country competed. It was the team’s first appearance at the event, and the preparation paid off: the team performed exceptionally well, and Grace reached the semifinals in her event.
Grace previously co-founded Tzafon, an AI research lab; conducted post-training and inference research at Character.ai; and led a machine learning team at Palantir. She also led a team working on SAFER, which helps the National Nuclear Security Administration monitor and manage safety across nuclear security sites nationwide. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a business degree from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Welcome, Grace, to the SVUDL Advisory Committee!
