Chris Theis is Executive Director of Victory Briefs. He currently coaches for The Marlborough School (CA). He has previously coached students from Palos Verdes Peninsula High School (CA), Lexington High School (MA), Apple Valley High School (MN), Trinity Preparatory School (FL), Winston Churchill (TX). He currently sits on the National Debate Coaches Association’s Executive Committee, the National Speech Association Lincoln-Douglas Committee, and the Tournament of Champions (TOC) Lincoln-Douglas Committee.

As a coach, his students have consistently reached elimination rounds at the Tournament of Champions, and have placed in the top 6 of the NSDA National Tournament. His students have won nearly every major invitational tournament (some multiple times) including: Harvard, Greenhill, Stanford, the Minneapple, Emory, CPS, Lexington, Loyola, Damus, the Greenhill Round Robin, and others.

As a competitor, he was one of only three juniors to ever win the Tournament of Champions and is the only person to win the tournament twice. He was the champion of Blake, Emory, the Iowa Round Robin twice, the Greenhill Round Robin twice, and St. Marks twice. Chris was also a semi finalist at Greenhill and the Glenbrooks, and a finalist at Berkeley. Chris was a four year qualifier to the NSDA National Tournament in Lincoln-Douglas, U.S. Extemp Speaking, and Congressional Debate.

Jake Nebel is Executive Director of Victory Briefs and Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at the University of Southern California, after receiving his PhD from New York University, AB from Princeton, and BPhil from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. As a coach, Jake’s students have won the Tournament of Champions, the NDCA National Championship, the Dukes & Bailey Cup, the Glenbrooks, the Harvard Round Robin, the New York City Invitational, the Barkley Forum at Emory, the TFA State Tournament, and other national, regional, and local championships. As a debater, he won the Glenbrooks (twice), Greenhill (twice), Harvard, Emory, Bronx, the Bronx Round Robin, the MBA Round Robin, the VBT Round Robin, and the Florida State Tournament, was in finals of NSDA Nationals, and was top speaker at the Tournament of Champions, Greenhill, Harvard, Bronx (twice), the Bronx Round Robin (twice), Yale (twice), the Vassar Round Robin, the Crestian Classic, and the Florida State Tournament. He attended VBI three times as a student and has worked at 35 sessions.

Devane is a senior instructor at Victory Briefs. Devane is a former debater for Rutgers-Newark and Newark Science. With Rutgers Newark, Devane won the 2017 CEDA National Championship and the 2017 NDT. He also was the top Speaker of the 2017 NDT. Devane has coached on the college and high school level and has coached multiple qualifiers to the TOC, CEDA nationals, the NDT and debaters to late elimination rounds at national tournaments throughout the season. Devane has also taught top lab at a number of Policy and LD camps.

Expertise: Policy Arguments, Kritik Debate, Ethos, Research, Winning

Hunniya Ahmad debated Lincoln Douglas at Coppell High school for four years in Coppell Texas. She acquired 4 career bids to the Tournament of Champions and was ranked within the top 20 LD Debaters in the nation. She has previous experience as a middle school debate coach at Coppell Debate Academy as well as private lessons. She was President of her 300+ member debate team and captain of her respective event Lincoln Douglas. Most notably, she attended Octafinals of Emory, Quarters of UT Austin and Semis of Isidore Newman. She is really excited to work with you this summer!

Nathan Chu debated for four years at Diamond Bar High School. During his career, he qualified to the Tournament of Champions twice, accumulating 8 career bids and reaching elimination rounds in his junior year. Some of his accomplishments include reaching quarterfinals of Meadows, semifinals of Damus, Harvard Westlake, and Sunvite, finals of Loyola, and championing the College Prep and Jack Howe tournaments. He also received 5th speaker at Lexington, 4th speaker at Stanford and Jack Howe, and top speaker at Nano Nagle. He's excited to work at VBI this summer!

Iris debated in LD for four years at Harvard-Westlake, qualifying twice to the TOC and earning six career bids. Her debate accomplishments include finals of the JW Patterson invitational, semifinals of St. Marks, and quarterfinals of Peninsula and Stanford. Iris is most interested in policy-style arguments, especially foreign policy topics, but is also interested in topicality and basic philosophy. She's excited to teach at VBI this summer!

Marshall Thompson is a Director of Instructional Design & Curriculum at Victory Briefs. He is is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy at Florida State University, having previously received a bachelors degree in philosophy from Wheaton College. A large portion of Marshall's academic studies focuses on the science and practice of effective teaching. Marshall has been successful both as a debater and coach; in recent years he has coached debaters to win major national tournaments (such as the Bronx Invitational) and reach late out rounds at many others (including twice reaching finals of the TOC). Marshall is an experienced camp instructor having both taught and developed curriculum at multiple camps for years. This will be his tenth summer teaching at VBI.

Expertise: Policy Arguments, Theory Debate, Philosophy Debate, Research

Lawrence Zhou is Director of Lincoln Douglas and Director of Publishing at Victory Briefs, where he was formerly a Lincoln-Douglas Curriculum Director. He is the 2014 NSDA Lincoln-Douglas national champion. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma where he was a MIS major with Philosophy, Marketing, and Chinese minors. He is an assistant coach at The Harker School and a graduate assistant at the University of Wyoming, was a member of the OU Ethics Bowl Team where he placed as the National Runner Up at the 2018 Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl National Competition, and debated on the OU Shannon Self Debate Program policy team where he advanced to outrounds at the 2016 and 2018 CEDA Tournament. He was the League Co-Director of Debate at the National High School Debate League of China from 2019-2020, promoting Public Forum Debate in China.