Background guide

Boone LaBounty has the pleasure of being the co-chair for this year's ad-hoc. He hails from Huntington Beach, California and is currently a third-year Economics and Accounting major at UCSB. When he’s not in lecture or attending an MUN meeting, you can usually find him in the great outdoors: hiking, surfing, cliff jumping, and basically anything else that can be done in nature with a group. He is also a State Park Aide for his hometown state beach, Bolsa Chica, and cannot emphasize enough how much he loves his job.
MUN has brought him some of his best friends and most cherished memories, and he is so grateful to be able to give back to it through this amazing group. He has been a part of MUN since his freshman year of high school and is so excited for his second time chairing an SBI conference! He enjoys MUN for its ability to bring out the best aspects of debate: collaboration, confidence, action, and intellectual discourse; he looks forward to seeing all of these and more displayed in the Ad-Hoc!

Mila Villicana is looking forward to chairing this year’s AD-HOC committee for Gaucho! She is a Chilean-American from Redlands, California and takes pride in expanding people’s knowledge about the random facts she learned on TikTok. This is her second year in Model UN, and interestingly enough, she is a Biopsychology (B.S.) major who is hoping to go to medical school to pursue a career in that field. Additionally, she enjoys traveling (but hates flying), self-care days, and exploring different music genres (please recommend her more music).
She is also involved in the Women in Technical Studies sorority, Alpha Sigma Kappa, where she serves as the head of academics. Additionally, she works with the Youth Mental Health Academy as a mentor/educator and volunteers at local elementary schools to teach science experiments in English and Spanish through SciTrek.
Aside from the aforementioned, she enjoys the public speaking aspect of Model UN because it allows her to be spontaneous. For those who are anxious about this committee, she encourages taking a deep breath and trusting yourself—there is no right way to be a delegate (as long as you know general procedure and have manners).
Feel free to ask her any questions about anything that crosses your mind, whether that be about the committee or herself.

After three long years, Byron Chan is finally the president of UCSB Model United Nations. Hoping to finally enact his plan of a seven way JCC, Byron is honored to be the crisis director of SBI's inaugural ad-hoc. In his free time, he enjoys watching the Minnesota Timberwolves blow up their core every off season, testing out viral cooking recipes from instagram reels, and rotting in bed. He wants to usher UCSB MUN into a great new era and hopes everyone enjoys SBI. Byron is a senior Bay Area native majoring in political science and a minor in Chinese.

Samira Sinha is thrilled to serve as the Co-Crisis Director for this year’s Ad Hoc committee! A proud Indian American from the Bay Area, she’s currently a senior double-majoring in Political Science and Ethics & Public Policy at UCSB. This marks her third year in Model UN, where she also moonlights as the Director of Logistics for GauchoMUN XVII.Outside of MUN, Samira studied Indian Classical Dance, with a B.F.A. that reflects her lifelong love of movement and rhythm. These days, she channels that same energy into baking experiments that occasionally alarm her roommates. When she’s not walking 20,000 steps or chasing her daily hydration goals, she’s teaching Congressional Debate at Dougherty Valley High School and writing an article for the UCSB Undergraduate Law Journal on AI and the right to privacy.