Faculty/Instructors
Taylor Brough
Faculty/Workshop Director
Taylor Brough is currently the Associate Head Coach/Assistant Professor of the Practice of Communication at Wake Forest University, where she has worked with multiple nationally competitive college teams. She recently finished her Doctoral work at the University of California-San Diego. Before earning her Master’s degree at Wake, Taylor coached at USC and Stanford, teams that achieved NDT qualifications at each school during all three years of her coaching. At the high school level, Taylor has worked mainly with small schools, successfully coaching Katy Taylor high school and SF Roosevelt to multiple TOC bids and helping to make upstarting debate programs sustainable and successful. As a debater at the University of Vermont, Taylor achieved a first round at large bid to the NDT, 2016 CEDA National Championship, and 2nd speaker at the 2016 NDT.
Taylor is interested in arguments that span Native studies, Black studies, queer and trans theory, postcolonial theory and economics, critical geography, critical university studies, and critical international relations studies. She has worked with teams who practice argumentation in all of these areas and beyond, but is most excited to work with debaters as they develop a strong sense of their own intellectual commitments. Taylor is committed to pedagogy, student-focused education, and building collaborative teaching and learning models that invite debaters to understand themselves as scholars. She believes that debate encourages students to take responsibility for their own education and fosters their scholarly and personal growth. As such, she hopes to cultivate vigorous scholarship that reflects the social location, experiences, and commitments of students. Debate is uniquely positioned to test and provide rigor in intellectual and personal work, but Taylor believes that this is even more true when students are encouraged to participate in collective learning environments.
Wake Forest Debate Squad including National Champions!
Wake Forest won the 2023 National Debate Tournament, Cross Examination Debate Tournament and the Varsity division of the American Debate Association Debate Tournament. They were the first school to do so! Students who come to the RKS will get to work with not only the talented Coaches listed above, but also talented debaters like Tajaih Robinson and Iyana Trotman who worked with students during the summer of 2023 before winning their national championship. Wake Forest debaters judge practice debates, assist with research and teaching as well as working to help create a welcoming space in the evening.
Dr. Amber E. Kelsie
Faculty
Amber Kelsie is in her fifth year as a Professor and Coach at Wake Forest University. She debated at Dartmouth College, and is the former Director of Debate at the New School and at Towson University. Amber coached two teams, including the first team of Black women, to win the CEDA Championship and has coached numerous teams to the late elims of the NDT, CEDA, and other major national tournaments. They also served as the President of CEDA in 2017-18. She recently received her PhD in Communication from the University of Pittsburgh. Amber’s scholarly interests and political commitments include: anti-capitalist thought and practice, Black studies, Black feminism, The Black Radical Tradition, liberalism and its critics, Nietzschean and post-structural theory, Queer and Trans Studies, Post-colonial theory, Critical Science and Technology Studies, and the history of social movements. They believe in applying theory to life, start-and-stop debates, devastating cross-examinations, explicating stakes in debate rounds, innovative argumentation, precision negative strategies, and subject formation as a locus for structural change.
Daryl Burch
Faculty
Policy debate veteran, mentor, and academic leader are just a few ways we define Daryl Burch. Considered by many to be the godfathers of Critical Race arguments in debate; he read Derrick Bell before Frank Wilderson was in grad school, his teams several years later won top speaker honors while coaching at Louisville. While he has an expertise in a set of literature, Daryl has a passion for making all students better speakers, thinkers, and arguers. Daryl has lead countless teams to success at national tournaments. Previously he coached in college at Michigan state, Emory University, and Towson University camps leading teams to success in the final rounds of a variety of national competitions. Daryl’s impressive educational background and his passion for helping students make him the perfect instructor for debaters of all levels.
Zac Grant
Zac will serve as the senior faculty for the Public Forum workshop. He has shifted back to coaching debate after scaling back from a corporate career during which he raised $77 million for nonprofit events and charities. Zac believes in putting one’s debate skills to practical use in real life and looks to inspire his students to be their best – just as he benefited from the coaches and colleagues who opened the world to him.
As a debater, Zac represented the University of Kansas where he won First Place or First Speaker awards at numerous nationally significant tournaments including Harvard, Emory, Northwestern, and the National Invitational (DSR-TKA). At NDT, Zac and colleague Mark Gidley were the #1 overall at-large bid, selected for their body of work throughout the full season (Copeland Award).
As a coach, Zac was Assistant Director of Forensics at UNC Chapel Hill, where he led the program to wins at Kentucky and Wake Forest and served as Executive Director of the National High School Debate Institute. He was selected along with Lenny Gail from Dartmouth to represent the US in the biennial US-Japan Debate Exchange.
Zac’s recent return to debate from corporate life began with coaching at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, where he led PF teams to victories at numerous local and regional events, including Charlotte Latin, Districts, TOC Series III (12-0) and elims at NSDA Nationals in Des Moines, where he also served as a final round judge in Extemp Debate. In both 2024 and 2025, Zac coached novice debaters all the way through Districts to NSDA Nationals in Policy/CX.
Dr. R. Jarrod Atchison
Director of Debate at Wake Forest/Lecturer
Dr. Jarrod Atchison is well respected both for his argument acumen and his emphatic insistence on helping students become better debaters and people. After spending several years as an instructor in the top senior lab at Michigan, Jarrod is focused on building a great workshop experience at Wake Forest. He coached a Copeland Winner and NDT First Rounds for the past 8 years. Many don't know he also was an extremely successful debater: top seed at the NDT, Copeland runner-up, and third speaker at the NDT. In high school he won the Greenhill and Harvard Round Robins. Jarrod has judged the final round of the National Debate Tournament 3 times.
Dr. Sammi Rippetoe
Dorm Supervisor
The Head Dormitory Supervisor, Samantha Rippetoe is someone who has extensive experience working with students in this capacity before. In addition to being an amazing dorm supervisor, she is also the Director of Debate at Bates College in Maine where she is also an Assistant Professor. This is her seveneth year at Wake Forest in the role. Prior to being at Wake Forest, she was a lead Dormitory supervisor at the collegiate level at Humboldt State University. She also possesses a background in debate so understanding student needs is not a problem.
Justin Green
Administrator/Lecturer
While his primary role of the workshop is administrative, Justin has been known to drop into a session or two to liven things up. Justin is a speaking and debate evangelist. During the year, he serves as the Head Coach for the Wake Forest Debate Team and Professor of the Practice in Communication Studies. He has taught oral communication for 24 years at multiple high schools, Georgetown, Kansas State, North Texas Universities before coming to Wake Forest. With two degrees in secondary education and an undying passion for teaching, you'll be hard to find anyone more equipped to empower your voice. He has coached several national champions over this span and more importantly had students go on to do great things. He has always emphasized an extremely involved and active learning environment. It is not uncommon for students to express that they felt like they have "gone through a workout" after completing one of his speaking sessions. He has won numerous awards for teaching and received extremely high evaluations at every stop along the way. He's not all work...During breaks he enjoys frisbee, soccer, basketball or playing many different instruments.
Please note, these are the faculty who worked in 2023. It is possible we will add more. It is also possible that circumstances could cause changes.