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!
Tess has been doing speech & debate for 5 years, with national titles including two-time Original Oratory champion at Glenbrooks, making the NSDA stage in Informative Speaking, and appearing in final rounds of Oratory, Info, and POI and both the state and national levels. She’s a climate communication nerd whose best experience in high school was coaching novices as team captain, and she’s thrilled to extend that experience at ISD.
Ryan is a senior at Fairmont Preparatory Academy and Captain of the Fairmont Debate Team. Across his four years in Public Forum debate, he accrued 14 gold bids and qualified to the Tournament of Champions four times. Ryan also championed ASU, Berkeley, and Alta, made finals at Glenbrooks, and made semifinals at Kentucky where he earned first place speaker. Outside of tournaments, he coaches a parliamentary debate program at a local middle school. And in his free time, Ryan likes to play basketball and read books at any parks he finds.
Mukta is a 2022 graduate of Durham Academy, where she competed primarily in Extemporaneous Speaking, Informative Speaking, and Original Oratory, and was Speech Captain her junior and senior year. She won 1st at the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions, 2nd place and the President’s Bowl in International Extemp at the NSDA National Championship, and 2nd at the NCFL Grand National Tournament. She is a double finalist in Extemp and Info at the Tournament of Champions, an MBA Round Robin Invitee, and has finaled at many tournaments including Harvard, Yale, Glenbrooks, Emory, GMU, Sunvite, and UK. Her favorite parts of Speech and Debate have been cheesy extemp jokes, mentoring novices, and her teammates’ speech memes. She is excited to be a part of ISD this year!
Jared is currently studying at The Ohio State University and is an alumnus of Hawken School in Cleveland, OH. At Hawken, Jared served as the Interpretation Captain as well as the Vice President of Speech his senior year. Jared was ranked as high as 1st in the country in both HI and POI, and competed since 7th grade. Jared has reached late elimination rounds at many national tournaments including 2nd at Yale, 6th at Glenbrooks, 5th at GMU Patriot Games, 2nd at the Barkley Forum, Semifinals at the UK TOC, Top-60 at NSDA Nationals, and was a four time NSDA national qualifier. In addition, he championed the Sunvitational, the Stanford Invitational, the New York City Invitational, and was the 2019 OSDA State Champion in POI. Outside of speech, Jared can be caught dancing in public, talking in different voices at all the wrong times, and trying to put a smile on people’s faces. Jared is excited to continue giving back to the activity that gave him so much, and he can’t wait to welcome more Interpers into the ISD family in 2020!
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 13 years of coaching, Chase has coached students across all events to national success. In 2014, Chase was a member of the Hawken coaching staff that won two national championships (Congressional Debate and Public Forum Debate) and a national runner-up (Impromptu Speaking). His students have routinely placed in the Top-10 at nationals, 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. At the 2016 NSDA National Tournament, Chase coached the national runners-up in World Schools Debate and his student placed 6th in the Senate, at the 2018 NSDA National Tournament, Chase’s student placed 9th in the House, and at the 2020 NSDA National Tournament, Chase’s students placed 4th in Policy Debate and Taipei American School was the first international school in the 95-year history of the NSDA to ever be recognized as a Debate School of Excellence (Top-20 in the nation). At the 2021 NSDA National Tournament, Chase’s students again won a Debate School of Excellence Award.
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 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 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!
Tanya Roundy is starting her 15 year of teaching. She competed in speech and debate in high school and over the last 14 years has coached at North Sanpete HS in Utah, Mission San Jose HS in California, Alta HS in Utah, and currently coaches at Summit Academy HS in Utah. She has had students qualify to the NSDA National Tournament in Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, POI, Original Oratory, Congressional Debate, Dramatic Interp, and Informative Speaking. She currently sits on the NSDA Public Forum Topic Wording Committee and recently presented at the NSDA National Education Conference. When she isn’t coaching or running debate tournaments, she is directing theatre productions and writing.
