Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you!My name is Will Tipton and I'm a student at UC San Diego with a passion for effective policy, foreign relations, and travel/culture. With that being said, my significant time spent involved in music and agriculture have been formative experiences for me, seeing me go from driving tractors and herding sheep to researching the impact of disinformation in the Czech Republic and German policy on Ex-Soviet migration. These wildly different experiences give me a uniquely well rounded mind and diverse perspective. As long as I can remember I've had a passion for debate, where I sparred with Dad almost every time I got the chance. This drive only strengthened as I got older and I competed on Moorpark College's Speech and Debate team in 2022-2023. Through this opportunity, I am proud to have placed 1st in IPDA among California community colleges and 2nd nationally. Aside from my long history of public speaking, including mock trial, speech and debate, and model UN, I am thrilled to publish my first academic work in Spring of 2025 through UCSD's Political Science Senior Honors Thesis program. As a step towards graduate school and future writings, I hope to meaningfully contribute to political science by discovering better ways to protect vulnerable groups abroad.