Location: Carolina Session 2
Zeke Ehrenberg
Zeke is a current senior at Delbarton School where he serves as the President of Speech and Debate. On the circuit, Zeke has been ranked the number 1 Public Forum team in the country two years in a row with two different partners. He has amassed 17 bids to the Tournament of Champions thus far, reaching quarter finals of Gold TOC twice and top speaking the division his junior year. Zeke has championed the Harvard Invitational, the Princeton Classic, the UK Season Opener, the Blake Tournament twice, the Ivy Street Round Robin, and the NJ State Championship. He has also reached deep elimination rounds at the Durham Invitational, the Durham Round Robin, the Applevalley Tournament, Sunvite, Yale, the Barkley Forum, the National Speech and Debate Tournament, and the University of Pennsylvania Invitational. Outside of debate, Zeke plays hockey and studies Arabic. Zeke can’t wait to work with everyone this summer!
Téa Shouldice
Téa is a senior at Half Hollow Hills High School East in New York. She has competed in speech and debate for three years and currently serves as the captain of Extemp and PF as well as co-president of her school’s team. Téa is the 2024 NSDA National USX Champion and Final Round winner. She also reached semifinals at the UKTOC, quarterfinals at NCFL nationals twice, quarterfinals at Yale, and championed the New York Chaminade Invitational twice. When not competing, she loves reading and refereeing ice hockey. Téa attended ISD and is thrilled to be returning to Carolina this summer!
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!
Ethan Massa
Ethan is a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in Philosophy. He also served as the director of Lincoln Douglas debate for the Florida Blue Key Tournament. His students have won tournaments such as Bronx, Valley, the Harvard Round Robin, Stanford, the Tournament of Champions, and NSDA Nationals. Ethan’s specialties include theory debate, speech execution/strategy, and argument construction. In his free time, Ethan greatly enjoys football and mixed martial arts – and if you ever have trouble finding him, it would be helpful to start your search at the nearest sushi bar.
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!
Jeffrey Miller
Jeffrey Miller is the Director of Speech & Debate at Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia where he has been since 2011. Jeffrey is a three-diamond NSDA coach who was the Georgia Coach of the Year in 2012 and 2023. He was also inducted into the Georgia Debate Hall of Fame in 2023. He has held leadership positions within the state organization as well as currently serving his 8th year on the NSDA Public Forum Wording Committee. Throughout his tenure at Marist, he’s qualified more than 100 students to the NSDA National Tournament and more than 40 students to the Tournament of Champions across all events. His students have reached late elimination rounds at virtually every national tournament in the country. He previously has worked as a Public Forum Debate Curriculum Director at Summit Debate, UGA, Emory University and Dartmouth College. Jeffrey is looking forward to his first summer with 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!
Michael Hansen
Michael debated for four years at Durham Academy, winning three national championships, including the Tournament of Champions (Gold), NCFL Grand Nationals, and NDCA National Novice Championship, and ranking #1 in PF nationally for the 2022-2023 season (DD Rankings). As a junior, he was the Yale Invitational co-champion, the King Round Robin top speaker & co-champion, the PF state champion, and a three-time qualifier to the TOC and NSDA tournaments. Beyond competition, Michael enjoys hanging out with friends and family and helping others achieve their goals in Speech & Debate!
Jenn Melin
Jenn Melin is excited to be joining the Institute for Speech and Debate for the summer of 2022. Jenn has previously served as Director of Mean Green Comet’s LD and World Schools Divisions and Directed the National Symposium for Debate’s Texas Campus. She has also directed curriculum for the University of Texas National Institute for Forensics and Victory Briefs Lincoln Douglas debate camps dating back to 2010.
As an LD coach, Jenn has been active in the national and Texas debate communities for over fifteen years. Her students have advanced to elimination rounds of virtually every major national tournament. Most recently she has served as the Assistant Coach at Harrison High School in New York where her students have championed the following Tournament of Champion bid tournaments: The Minneapple, The Glenbrooks, Harvard, Princeton, Holy Cross, Isidore Newman, and Newark. They were runners up at Blue Key, Stanford, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania. They were Octafinalists at the TOC in 2021, two NDCA Quarterfinalists (2021), and closed out the Novice division of NDCA 2022. Previously, she has coached champions of the Grapevine Classic, University of Texas, Blue Key, Blue Key Round Robin, Strake Jesuit, Strake Jesuit Round Robin, Colleyville, and Voices Round Robin. In addition to coaching semi- finalists at St. Marks and Greenhill. Jenn has specialized in working with students from small Texas programs and has qualified a significant number of those students to the TOC and NSDA Nationals over the years. The 2019-2020 LD TOC Bid Leader was one such student. She has qualified almost every student she’s ever coached to TFA State; culminating in a record setting fourteen LD qualifications in a single year. Jenn is the coach of the 2020 TFA State Champion in Lincoln Douglas. Her students have participated in out rounds of both TOC and TFA. Jenn has also coached a UIL 5A State Champion and last year’s UIL 6A runner-up.
Jenn is also an active member of the Texas World Schools community. She co-coaches Team Texas. In their first year, they championed the Isidore Newman tournament, earned top seed at the Harvard World Schools Invitational, and were semifinalists at Blake. Additionally, they earned top 32 honors at the EurOpen, one of the largest WSD tournaments in the world. She has coached the Lone Star District World Schools team since the inception of the event at the National Tournament. Her students have reached elimination rounds of that tournament the past three years, including clearing a record three teams at the 2019 National Tournament. Her team, Lone Star Green, championed the 2020 NSDA Nationals in World Schools.
Jenn directs the Grapevine Colleyville ISD Middle School Debate Club and assists the Greenhill Middle School Debate club and Coppell Debate Academy.