Research interests: Teaching public speaking and debate.

Gary Rybold has taught public speaking and debate at Irvine Valley College (IVC) in California since 1993. His competitive speaking experience included four years of high school and four years of college. He coached IVC to 16 national debate championship titles. Professor Rybold was the first certified trainer of the International Debate Education Association to teach in China (2003). He has taken over 130 IVC students and coaches to China on academic debate tours and has trained over 7,000 Chinese students in debate and public speaking. As a Fulbright-Hayes scholar, Professor Rybold researched debate as a developmental tool for English majors at Beijing Foreign Studies University in China. At the same university, he received a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics (2011) with a dissertation on pedagogy for developing oral communication and critical thinking skills in a second language. Professor Rybold has written over 25 magazine, journal, and convention articles and three textbooks: College English Critical Thinking Course (3) (Beijing: FLTRP Press, 2016); Debating in English: A Critical Thinking Approach to Effective Speaking (Beijing: FLTRP Press, 2010); Speaking, Listening, and Understanding – Debate for Non-Native English Speakers (NY: IDEBATE Press, 2006).