Purdue Ballroom Dance Team Officers

Coaches

Yuehwern Yih and Daniel Dilley
Latin/Rhythm Coaches

Yuehwern and Daniel are the head coaches of the team. Yuehwern founded the competition team in 1996. Daniel and Yuehwern are both certified adjudicators by the North American Dancesport Teachers Association (NADTA), USA Dance, and World DanceSport Federation (WDSF). They are also certified Scrutineers with the National Dance Council of America (NDCA). Yuehwern is a certified Chair of Judges with USA Dance and Daniel is the owner of the O2CM competition management system.
Daniel is a Purdue CS alumni, and Yuehwern is our faculty advisor from the school of Industrial Engineering. Before ballroom, Yuehwern was a principal company member of the Lafayette Ballet Company, and Daniel was dabbling in hip hop and breakdance and competing as a stage magician.
Daniel and Yuehwern had a successful competition journey together. They were finalists and winners in many USA Dance national and regional events and later in professional competition events. Now they enjoy dancing, learning, teaching, and traveling together to judge dance competitions, ..... and play Escape rooms!
As head coaches, besides coaching the team, their primary job is to maintain connection with professionals in the dance community, and provide guidance in organizing the annual Purdue Ballroom Classic, a ballroom competition that attracts over 400 competitors from over 20 college teams.

Gert and Kirsti Roslender
Standard/Smooth Coaches

Gert and Kirsti Roslender are the Standard/Amooth Coaches of our team and the owners of the beautiful Aurelia Dance Studio in Westfield, IN.
They began their ballroom dancing career as young teens in Estonia, ultimately representing their home country in European and World Championships five times.
The Roslenders came to the United States in 1998, where they continued their professional careers by participating in more than 100 competitions, becoming United States Rising Star Standard Champions and Open Standard Grand Finalists.
They are certified by the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD), North American Teachers Association (NATA) and the National Dance Council of America (NDCA), placing them in an elite category of ballroom dance instructors worldwide who have attained these designations.
In addition to coaching our team, Gert and Kirsti are full time ballroom dance instructors at Aurelia Dance Studio, competition judges, and also perform professional dance shows. Their students are top-ranked competitors, both nationally and regionally.