2018 grad named candidate for U.S. Physics Team; 10 other students reach top 10 percent

Last month, the American Association of Physics Teachers named Swapnil Garg ’18 one of 20 high school students nationwide who will contend for a spot on the United States Physics Team. Garg and the other candidates are currently completing a boot camp held at the University of Maryland, after which five students will be selected to represent the United States at the International Physics Olympiad, held in Lisbon, Portugal, from July 21-29.

Garg was one of 11 Harker students who qualified to take the United States Physics Olympiad (USAPhO) exam after scoring in the top 10 percent on a screening exam in January. The others were then-seniors (now graduates) Jimmy Lin, Neelesh Ramachandran and Shaya Zarkesh; juniors Timothy Chang, Kaushik Shivakumar and Katherine Zhang; sophomore Jeffrey Kwan; freshman Daniel Wang; and eighth graders David Dai and Rishab Parthasarathy. Of those, Kwan, Parthasarathy and Zarkesh each won a bronze medal, and Dai and Shivakumar received an honorable mention.