Peter Pober

Peter Pober is a professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University where he also directs the university's nationally ranked forensics team. He is the only forensics director in history to orchestrate a top-10 team national placement for 22 consecutive years.

Mr. Pober is honored to continue Mason's 40-year tradition in forensics, one that has garnered 31 national top-ten placements. Before arriving in Fairfax in fall 2003, he directed the University of Texas at Austin's forensics team to 32 individual, team, and program national championships. He has been honored as the keynote speaker for more than 20 state conventions, and myriad corporate gatherings.

He is Chair of the American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament Committee; is a former president of the Texas Speech Communication Association; directed the 6-state region of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas region for 13 years for the American Forensic Association, and was honored by that district and the national association with the Distinguished Service Award in 1998.

Mr. Pober was given the Texas Intercollegiate Forensic Association Educator of the Year Award in 1994, and the Texas College and University Educator of the Year by the Texas Speech Communication Association in 2002. He served as scholar-analyst for numerous U.S. and Canadian publications for the 2008 presidential and vice presidential debates. He is also the Faculty Senate Chair at Mason.

Mr. Pober is the first U.S. professor to be invited by the Chinese government to oversee their national English-language public speaking competition. He directs the George Mason Institute of Forensics, the largest and demographically most diverse comprehensive high school forensics workshop in the nation. He has written numerous articles on the marked communication that takes place within and between marginalized groups and is thrilled to call George Mason University home.