Bailey debated for four years at Southlake Carroll where he served as the Co-President of Speech and Debate. He has amassed a total of 9 bids to the Tournament of Champions in his career, qualifying three times and reaching the semifinals of Silver TOC his junior year. Additionally, he has attended NSDA Nationals twice, placing 6th as a sophomore and winning as a junior. Other notable achievements include, championing CSU, semifinaling UT, and getting speaker awards at TFA state, TOC, and Glenbrooks. Outside of debate, Bailey enjoys playing basketball and reading lightnovels.
Location: Florida
Stella Wu
Stella debated for Taipei American School for four years and served as both the President of Speech & Debate as well as the Public Forum captain. On the circuit, Stella has been ranked consistently in the Top 10 PF teams, and as high as the top team in the country. She won 3rd place at the 2023 National Speech & Debate Tournament in PF, becoming the highest-ranking female debater that year. Stella also championed the Stanford Invitational, the UK Season Opener, and the Harvard Round Robin. She has also either championed or finaled her State qualifiers in the past three years and reached deep elimination rounds at Apple Valley, Sunvitational, and the TOC, amassing seven gold bids in her career. Outside of debate, Stella is a published poet and an online tutor for math and history, and she enjoys reading One Piece in her free time. She is very excited to join the ISD family and work with everyone this summer!
Jade Ismail
Jade Ismail competed for four years at Comeaux High School in Louisiana. She is the 2022 NSDA National Champion in Program of Oral Interp, the 2022 Emory Champion in Oratory, and the 2023 3rd Place finisher at Emory in Oratory. She has also reached final rounds in both Interp and Platform events at tournaments across the country. She is excited to be joining the ISD family and can’t wait to bring some southern HEAT to ISD: Carolina this summer! She can’t wait to see you there!
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.