Location: Carolina Session 1
Jordan Melamed
Jordan is a senior at American Heritage Schools’ Palm Beach Campus in Florida and is currently president of her Speech & Debate Team. Jordan has been competing in Speech and Debate for 7 years, with her experience being primarily in Congressional Debate. So far in her career, Jordan has finaled at Nova Titan, Yale, and Sunvite. She has placed within the top 6 at FFL Varsity States, Cavalier Invitational, Cavalier Survivor Challenge Round Robin, and Harvard Round Robin, also championing the Blue Key Round Robin before becoming the 2024 House Runner Up. She has presided over numerous outrounds, including Florida State Finals, FBK Semifinals, Yale Semifinals, Harvard Quarters, and NSDA House Finals. When she is not competing, Jordan is either listening to music, playing pickleball, or hanging out with friends. She is very excited to see everyone in Carolina!
Swathi Bodduluri
Swathi Bodduluri is a rising senior at Pennsbury High School. She has served as the Captain of the Speech and Debate team for the past three years while competing in Congressional Debate and Extemporaneous Speaking. Throughout her career, Swathi has placed 4th at NSDA Nationals, 5th at Yale, 6th at Glenbrooks, 4th at the Barkley Forum (Emory), and 5th at Harvard. She has championed tournaments like UPenn, Bronx, and PA/PHSSL State, as well as receiving a Harvard Round Robin invite! When she’s not debating, she’s reading, rowing, or with her friends. She can’t wait to see everyone in Carolina!
Ben Hodges
Ben debated for Durham for three years where he achieved extensive success both on the local and national level. Most notably, he was the 2024 NSDA National Champion, 2023 National Runner-Up, semi-finalist at the gold TOC, and 2023 NC state champion. On the national circuit, Ben achieved a top—10 national ranking for two back-to-back seasons, was the champion of Princeton, Yale, Duke, and the King Round Robin, and amassed over 10 gold bids. He’s incredibly excited to work with and help you grow this summer at ISD!
Esther Oyetunji
Esther has done Speech and Debate for four years, competing in several categories such as Informative Speaking, Original Oratory, and Program Oral Interpretation. As a member of the American Heritage Speech team she has championed various tournaments ranging from Florida Varsity State, The Barkley Forum at Emory University, and Harvard University’s International Tournament. Most notably, she is a three time, back-to-back-to-back NSDA National Champion in Original Oratory. Esther is so excited to give back to a community that has given her so much!
Bo Lint
Bo Lint is the Director of Speech & Debate at American Heritage Schools, Palm Beach Campus. In the past five years at American Heritage Palm Beach, Bo’s students have won tournaments like Yale, Nova Titan, Florida Blue Key, The Tradition, The Glenbrooks, George Mason, and the FFL Varsity State tournament, and have placed top-6 at tournaments like Bronx, Sunvitational, Emory, Stanford, Harvard, and the NSDA National Tournament. In addition, his students have earned over 100 bids to the Tournament of Champions (mostly in Congress), with 41 qualifying to NCFL Nationals and 39 qualifying to the NSDA National Tournament.
As a former competitor himself, Bo knows first-hand the transformational power of Speech & Debate and how much of an impact it can have on students’ lives. He has watched Congressional Debate change over the last 15 years and loves how Congress synthesizes the best aspects of other events together and is constantly evolving for the better. Bo is excited to join ISD this summer!
Rachel Mauchline
Rachel Mauchline is the Assistant Director of Speech and Debate for Durham Academy in North Carolina. She also teaches Middle School Speech and Debate at Durham Academy. Rachel was the recipient of the 2022 National Debate Coaches Association Rising Star Coach Award, the 2020 National Speech and Debate Association District Leader Commendation, and 2022 University of Arkansas Communication Department Early Alumni Award. Rachel formerly taught at Cabot High School in Arkansas as the Director of Speech and Debate until Fall 2023. Rachel also serves the NSDA as a Tabroom Superuser and previously founded a nonprofit called debateARkansas with the aim of making debate more accessible. Rachel is looking forward to another year working at ISD.
Chase Williams
Chase Williams is the 6-12 Director of Speech and Debate at Taipei American School and founder of The Institute for Speech and Debate. In his 15 years of coaching, Chase has coached students across all events to national success. Chase has coached multiple NSDA National Champions and Top-6 finishers across multiple events. His students have advanced as far as Semifinals in PF at the TOC, and have championed or been in the final round at Yale, Minneapple, The Glenbrooks, Blake, The Sunvitational, Stanford, and Emory. As the Director of Speech and Debate at TAS, Chase has built a program that routinely makes history, including 3rd and 4th place finishes at NSDA Nationals in Public Forum and Policy Debate respectively, and 4 school awards in the last 4 years.
Before transitioning to education and coaching full-time, Chase was a political operative at the local, state, and federal campaign level. He has remained involved in the political arena as a volunteer and fundraiser.
To Chase, ISD is so much more than a summer camp, it is his extended family and he can’t wait to welcome more students into that family this summer!
Maggie Woodward
Maggie Woodward coaches Original Oratory and Informative Speaking at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, New York, and has been involved in forensics as a competitor & a coach for 15 years. As a student, she was the Tennessee State Champion in Original Oratory, and a national finalist in 2008. During college, she competed for Western Kentucky University Forensics. She has taught or directed Oratory at multiple summer institutes, including WKU’s Summer Forensics Institute and the Florida Forensics Institute. Students she has coached have been finalists or champions at Wake Forest, Yale, Harvard, Emory, Bronx Science, TOC, and NSDA. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Mississippi and is pursuing her PhD at the University of Southern California. She is very excited to work with the students in ISD’s new Original Oratory program this summer!
Brittany Stanchik
Brittany Stanchik is in her eighth year coaching Congressional Debate at Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, AZ and is the new Director of Forensics at DV. Over the course of her coaching career, she has coached numerous TOC qualifiers, including 7 finalists, 18 NSDA National Finalists, and 7 National Semifinalists. In 2014 alone, Brittany coached five students to the Final Round of Congressional Debate at NSDA Nationals.
Brittany understands the need to preserve the tradition and educational aspects of Congressional Debate but has learned the progression that naturally comes with the event; she teaches students how to adapt in a quickly changing environment by having them focus equally on three pillars: argumentation, presentation, and refutation.
During her personal career, Ms. Stanchik was in the 2009 NSDA National Congress Final and the 2010 NSDA National Quarter finals for Public Forum Debate. She graduated from Arizona State University where she majored in Communication and Justice Studies. She can’t wait to spend another summer with her ISD Family!