Class Notes — Harker School 1965-present –Harker Magazine Summer 2018
Alumni from all classes through 1997 are listed under the years they would have completed grade 8 at The Harker School, Harker Academy, Harker Day School or Palo Alto Military Academy (PAMA).
For all classes after the Class of 1997, alumni are listed under the class years they would have graduated from high school, regardless of whether they completed high school studies at Harker. For unlisted classes, we invite you to email alumni@harker.org if you are interested in becoming a class agent or would like to nominate a classmate. All photos submitted by the subject unless noted.
1965
Carol Beattie, along with Community Foundation Sonoma County leadership, accepted Harker’s donation of $10,000 at a visit at the CFSC’s headquarters in Santa Rosa. Carol posted on the foundation’s Facebook page, “I’m proud to be associated with such a forward-thinking private school and a community of parents, staff and administrators that repurposed an alumni event – helping other communities in need. Thank you.” Harker donated the money after canceling this year’s Family & Alumni Picnic because of the poor air quality resulting from the North Bay fires.
1972
Mike Breslin donated all of his Palo Alto Military Academy uniforms back to their Harker home and even sat for an on-camera interview to discuss the history of his uniforms and memories from his days spent at PAMA. The video will be showcased during Harker’s next Family & Alumni Picnic, celebrating the school’s 125-year legacy.
1990
Mark Gelineau is a current Harker English teacher, a published author, a second- generation Harker alumnus, and his son, who starts kindergarten in the fall, will be a third-generation Harker student. Mark met his wife while they were both working at Harker Summer Camp. While here Mark has been an English teacher, camp counselor, BMX course and archery instructor, dorm houseparent, recreation supervisor, maintenance crew worker, and head of the middle school’s Spirit Club. What’s next for Mark? He’s doing an author appearance at BayCon and will be teaching a writing class at Harker Summer Institute. See Mark’s Face Time profile on page 63.
2003
Julia Gitis and her husband, Max Lipschultz, welcomed a baby boy in April.
2004
Vivek Saraswat, who sang with Guys’ Gig at Harker, has kept up his singing and has formed an a cappella group called Halfway to Midnight. The seven-person group sang in the 2018 San Francisco Harmony Sweepstakes this past March.
Emma (Hawley) Ivaturi has been enjoying her role in editorial and design for the international monthly Heartfulness Magazine. Feel free to reach out to her if you think a project or article you’re working on would be relevant to the publication at emma.ivaturi@heartfulness.org. When she’s not volunteering as a Heartfulness meditation trainer at schools and corporations, she’s enjoying time with her son, Rohan, who came into the world last May.
Maya Hey has successfully defended her proposal and is now a doctoral candidate in the department of communication studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Her dissertation project will be about food and fermentation, using feminist theories to better understand discriminating tastes and practices. She recently received the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, one of the most prestigious academic awards conferred by the Canadian government.
2006-2007
This year’s selection of Forbes 30 Under 30 list included three Harker alumni: Meghana Dhar ’06, Siddharth Sattish ’06 and Chadwick Manning ’07. Catch the full story at news.harker.org.
2008
Rangita Raghavan says, “After completing three years of medical school, I took a year off to work as a medical producer for season 9 of “The Dr. Oz Show.” I was able to bring my knowledge of medicine to the world of writing and producing. It was a rewarding job because I learned firsthand how to produce a daily talk show, made tougher when you embed medical content in it. My job entailed working with the segment producers to write show scripts that convey complex medical concepts to the audience in an accurate and compelling way. This included the development of demonstrations and animations, along with their talking points, that helped visualize these concepts. We also orchestrated lab testing and experiments and would brief Dr. Oz and medical experts on all show days about show content.” Rangita is heading back to USC to finish her medical degree but was lucky enough to cap off her TV experience by witnessing the show’s Emmy win for Best Informative Talk Show.
March was an exciting month for Tiffany Liou. She finished her contract at the CBS station in Oklahoma City, got married and moved to Dallas to be a news reporter at the ABC affiliate, WFAA. “I’m loving every minute of my journalism career and am so grateful to be working in a top five television market!”
Jami (Woolsey) Johnson and her husband, Neil, welcomed their first child on April 27. His name is Ryland Ellis Johnson and he was 7 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches long.
Sabena Suri co-founded BOXFOX, an LA-based e-commerce gifting company, in November 2014 (shopBOXFOX.com). While working in brand strategy, she identified the need for a comprehensive gifting service that lets both consumers and corporations send elevated, personalized gift boxes for any occasion. She currently serves as BOXFOX’s COO and holds a B.A. in public relations from the University of Southern California.
2010
Mahum Jamal completed her first feature film, “A Good Dream,” which was released on iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay and most other non-subscription video-on-demand platforms in May. The film had a successful festival run, winning 17 international film festival awards. “A Good Dream” is a psychological thriller art film about a girl in her 20s who is trying to find herself in New York. She is haunted by a presence and has trouble distinguishing fiction from reality, falling deeper into a world of her perceptions. For mature audiences.
Kelsey Chung graduated from Pratt Institute with a master’s with distinction in the history of art and design with a museum studies certificate. She is interning at the South Street Seaport Museum in the collections department. “If anyone is still in New York or is planning on visiting, let me know! I’m happy to hang out and visit museums with people.” Also, Kelsey and Isaac Ball ’08 were married on Dec. 29!
2011
Ashtyn Ka and Jerry Sun became engaged in May after dating since their junior year of high school. Ashtyn, a recent NYU law graduate, and Jerry, a trader at Susquehanna International Group, live in New York and plan to have their wedding in September 2019.
2012
Zach Ellenberg proposed to his girlfriend of three-and-a-half years, Ruth Ferguson, and she said, “Yes!” Zach and Ruth met while attending the University of Washington.
2013-2014-2015
Suchita Netty ’13 and Angela Ma ’14 were awarded 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Read more about this wonderful story at news.harker.org.
Urvi Gupta ’14 writes, “I had the wonderful opportunity to co-direct Disrupt Diabetes (disruptdiabetes2018.com), a multi-stakeholder design challenge created to put patients in the driver’s seat of innovation. For nine weeks, 12 patients partnered with students and designers to uncover unmet needs and conduct user research; on May 20, teams met in person at the Stanford School of Medicine and were joined by medical experts and thought leaders to generate impactful and viable solutions for their need areas. The day was filled with genuine conversation, respect for each other’s perspectives and creative solutions, and a strong community of Disruptors was built through shared vulnerability and passion.”
David Lindars ’13, Shikhar Dixit ’15, Neel Bhoopalam ’13 and Simar Mangat ’13 came back home to help celebrate the grand opening of our new athletic facility.
Teacher Gabrielle Stahl joined Leeza Kuo ’15 and her mother, Jade, for dinner. Leeza is in an eight-year veterinary program at Purdue and is currently studying abroad in Australia. “Leeza has learned to have a balanced life and I rarely see such a happy child. We had a wonderful evening,” Stahl reported.
2017
Alexis Gauba, now attending the University of California, Berkeley, is part of a team that will explore in-depth research on blockchain protocols specifically focusing on alternative consensus. She also held a women’s conference on the subject back in April of this year. Read more about Alexis and her team at news.harker.org.
Reunions: 5, 10 and 15 Year
The classes of 2002, 2007 and 2012 held their fifth, 10th and 15th class reunionswith plenty of festivities and catching up. The Class of 2002’s 15-year celebration marked a special milestone as they hold the distinct honor of being the upper school’s first graduating class.
Keller Alumni Tour
The 2018 Keller Tour hit two states this spring.First were visits with students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., and then a trip to Southern California that covered
Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, Pomona College, Scripps College and the University of Redlands. The tour wrapped up at a school a bit closer to home, visiting with alumni currently attending Santa Clara University.