Veer is a rising freshman at New York University and has debated at Durham Academy for four years. He has been ranked as high as 2nd in the country in PF, amassing nine gold bids to the TOC across his career. In his senior year, he won Princeton, Duke, and Yale while reaching late elimination rounds at the Barkley Forum, Mineapple, Bronx, and Sunvite. He won the state championship as a junior and placed 14th at NSDA Nationals as a sophomore. When not debating, Veer enjoys spending time with his family and friends, playing basketball, and listening to music. He’s looking forward to meeting everyone this summer!
Type: Junior
McKinley Paltzik
McKinley Paltzik will graduate from Phoenix Country Day School in 2023, where she competed in Extemporaneous Speaking, Congressional Debate, Impromptu Speaking, and Lincoln-Douglas Debate. She is the 2022 National Champion and President’s Bowl Winner in International Extemporaneous Speaking, the 2022 MBA Champion, and the 2022 TOC Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking. She is the first competitor to ever win the Yale Invitational 3 consecutive times, and has championed the NYC Invitational twice. She’s reached final rounds at both Harvard and Glenbrooks too. McKinley is also the Director of the Extemper’s Bible, an organization dedicated to making Extemp resources ubiquitously accessible. She is excited to be joining the ISD family and can’t wait to meet everyone this summer!
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.
Tess Segal
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 Gumlia
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 Dharmapurikar
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!
Reya Brahmbhatt
Reya Brahmbhatt is the senior captain of the congressional debate team at Ridge High School in New Jersey. By the end of her junior year, Reya placed 3rd at the NCFL nationals, reached the final round at the NSDA Senate nationals, and the semifinal rounds at the NSDA House nationals and the Tournament of Champions. She is a 3 time-qualifier to the TOC with 16+ bids. Additionally, she championed the Blake Round Robin and Villiger along with top-six finishes at Sunvite, Blake, and Pennsbury. She also competed in several semifinal and final rounds including Yale, Harvard, and GMU.
Reya enjoys congressional debate not only for its unique structure and argumentation but also because of the invaluable experiences it has given her. She’s very excited to be coaching at ISD this summer!
Katheryne Dwyer
Katheryne debated at Walt Whitman High School in Maryland, where she served as President of Speech and Debate and Inclusivity Captain of the PF team. She has competed in PF on the national circuit for three years, earning thirteen career gold and three silver bids to the Tournament of Champions. Over her career, Katheryne earned numerous speaker awards, including 1st speaker at Lexington, Lakeland, and the Harvard Round Robin, 3rd speaker at Valley and Blake, 4th speaker at the Blake Round Robin, and 5th speaker at Bronx. Also notably, she semifinaled the TOC, won Valley Mid-America Cup twice, finaled the Harvard Round Robin, semifinaled Blake (2021) and the Blake Round Robin, quarterfinaled Harvard, Blake (2020), and Stanford, and reached late outrounds at several other tournaments. Outside of competing, Katheryne is the President of Beyond Resolved, where she works to combat many forms of inequity and make debate a more safe and accessible activity.
Jenesis Williams
Jenesis Williams has competed in Original Oratory and Informative Speaking for the past four years at Cypress Bay High School, where she is the captain of the speech and debate team. She’s performed in the final rounds of the Florida Blue Key Invitational, the Glenbrooks Speech and Debate Tournament, and the Harvard National Forensics Tournament, and she was a 2020 FFL State Champion. Jenesis is a four time NSDA national qualifier, placing 5th in 2019 and 9th in 2020 at the NSDA National Tournament in Informative Speaking. When she’s not competing, you can find her on the hunt for really good food, reading, or re-creating Swan Lake in her kitchen. Jenesis can’t wait to be a part of the ISD difference this summer!
Jared Shapiro
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!