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!
Location: Florida
Bailey Koh
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.
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!
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!
Bradley Wascher
Bradley Wascher is the extemporaneous speaking coach at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida.
In five years with the team, he coached the champion of more than a dozen national and invitational tournaments, including NCFL, Harvard, the Barkley Forum, and Glenbrooks, with additional placings at NSDA, the MBA Round Robin, and the Extemp TOC. LHP extempers have collectively earned six semifinals, four finals, and a championship at the FFL State tournament since 2019, alongside 16 national qualifications and 34 bids to the Tournament of Champions.
As a competitor himself for Saint James School and then Western Kentucky University, Bradley won a pair of Alabama state titles and reached semifinals or finals at the TOC, the Extemp TOC, NSDA (including first place in extemp commentary in 2016), AFA, and NFA. Outside of forensics, he also has a master’s degree from Georgetown University and works in DC as a political data journalist.
Bradley joined ISD in 2022 after teaching for five summers at other camps as curriculum director and faculty. He looks forward to sharing his passion for pop music, Coca-Cola, and (most importantly) extemp!
Parker De Deker
Parker is a senior at Neenah High School in Wisconsin and is currently the President of his Speech & Debate Team. Parker offers a diverse, six-year Speech & Debate experience to ISD, ranging from Original Oratory, Impromptu, Extemp, and Program Oral Interp to Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas, and Congressional Debate. In his career, Parker has championed the Wisconsin State Tournament in Impromptu and Finaled in Extemp. Additionally, he has broken to out rounds at Florida Blue Key, Harvard, and Barkley Forum, Finaled at Glenbrooks, Princeton, Blake, and Cabot, Championed the Plano Classic, Was the National Runner-Up at NCFL Grand Nationals in D.C. and Championed the National Speech & Debate Tournament in Congressional Debate: House, was the Final Round Presiding Officer, and House Leadership Bowl Winner in June of 2022. Through accumulating 16+ Lifetime Bids to the UKTOC, 4 to NIETOC, and 3 Qualifications to both National Tournaments and work experience with political and governmental organizations, Parker is excited to emphasize the importance of external application of Speech & Debate skills in the real world.
Parker looks to work with students on gaining confidence, growing their self-esteem, developing nuanced argumentation and powerful rhetoric, and employing academic diction in their speeches to win a debate by proving their comprehensive understanding of a topic or policy and convince their chamber and judges, that they are standing on the right side of history.
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.
Angelique Ronald
After 15 years of coaching, Angelique Ronald has refocused her attention to advocating for matters of equity and inclusion in the world of speech and debate. Through publications (including Rostrum winter 2017 article “Women In Competitive Forensics”), national conference presentations (2018: “Fostering Inclusivity and Safe Spaces at Tournaments: Best Practices” and 2019: “Gender Inequity in Speech and Debate: A Solutions-Focused Discussion”), and advocacy in California and beyond, Angelique promotes solutions-based, culture-wide changes to make forensics a more accessible, open, and safe space for all.
Angelique currently serves as the State Tournament Director / Vice President of Activities of the California High School Speech Association, the co-President of the Southern Valley Forensic League, and a member of the Sierra District Committee for the National Speech and Debate Association.
Brian Manuel
Brian is the Director of Debate at Edgemont Jr./Sr. High School in New York and Director of Policy Debate at Stanford University, in addition to serving as a consultant for the National Speech & Debate Association. Widely recognized for his unrivaled talent in revitalizing traditional programs, Brian was named the 2008 Michael Bacon Coach of the Year and 2016 Val A. Browning Director of the Year. He has been coaching for nearly 20 years and was recently elected to the Executive Board of the National Debate Coaches Association.
Under his leadership, Edgemont’s debate program has flourished, winning five state championships and countless speaker awards, as well as presenting to the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill. His students championed the 2015 Georgetown Day School Invitational and 2018 Mamaroneck Round Robin in Policy Debate; 2018 Harrison Round Robin and 2019 Newark Round Robin in Lincoln-Douglas Debate; and 2016 Lakeland Round Robin, 2016 Westchester Classic, 2018 University of Michigan High-School Tournament, and 2019 Lakeland Round Robin in Public Forum Debate. After past outround appearances in Policy and Lincoln-Douglas, Edgemont will be represented in all principal debate events at this year’s Tournament of Champions. Brian has enjoyed equal success at Stanford, where he coached its first team in two decades—and fourth team ever—to qualify for the National Debate Tournament, finishing in the top 30 in both 2013 and 2015.
Over the course of his professional career, Brian has coached for Harvard University, College Preparatory School, Cathedral Preparatory School, Chattahoochee High School, Lakeland High School, and Scranton High School. His students have advanced to elimination rounds at every major national tournament, including NSDA, NDCA, NCFL, and CEDA Nationals. He also coached the champions of the 2003 Big Bronx Invitational, 2008 Barkley Forum, and 2012 Golden Desert Tournament in Policy Debate, along with the 2007 NCFL finalists, 2012 NSDA finalists, and 2013 Phyllis Flory Barton top speaker.
During the summer, Brian serves as the Academic Director at the Stanford National Forensic Institute. He previously taught workshops at the University of Kentucky, University of Michigan, Georgetown University, and Millennial Speech & Debate. Brian is looking forward to his first summer at ISD!