This article originally appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Harker Magazine.
“I’m actually still shocked.… When they read out the second place, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting anything,” said a smiling Yi Sun ’06, when he was interviewed in 2009 by NBC 11 after winning second place in the Intel Science Talent Search. “I really didn’t think it went that well.”
But obviously, it did go well for Sun, then a senior at Harker, who competed against 1,500 students to win second place in the prestigious competition.
Sun, who was born in Shanghai and moved all over China, then to Canada and a few cities in the U.S. as a child, arrived at Harker in seventh grade. His natural inclination toward complex math topics was evident to every teacher he encountered, including Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who encouraged him to participate in math competitions.
“He is one of three students who I have taught in 20 years that I remember to have had a genuine love for the subject, which was at a level that is unparalleled,” said Kadam. “Apart from his amazing math abilities, the one thing that I fondly remember about Yi is his immense modesty and his maturity at that age.”
His modesty is still intact even after completing his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master of advanced studies in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s and master’s in mathematics from Harvard University.
Today Sun is a Simons Fellow in the math department at Columbia University. His research interests are in representation theory and integrable systems and their applications to probability and random matrices.
“These are pretty technical subjects that aren’t going to be that relatable, but basically I spend my time researching, writing papers and teaching,” said Sun. “I like to have a balance between the three and working with freshmen is kinda refreshing.”
Sun’s passion for teaching has been fed over the years at the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, where he has been an instructor for seven summers.
“I attended this summer program after doing well in math competitions, which are not very fun to watch,” Sun said with a soft laugh. “The first year I went, I thought I was good at math, but then I was surrounded by these super smart people and very difficult problems.”
As a student, in addition to mathematics, he also loved history, art history, French and English, which allowed him to reflect on various subjects from a different angle.
“Sure, he was exceptionally brilliant, but what I remember most was his smile and how much he loved to laugh,” said Kevin Lum Lung, a college counselor at Harker. “And he always greeted everyone with that wonderful smile, treated everyone with respect and was willing to help anyone who asked.”
Although math is clearly Sun’s passion, other interests include trivia (he captained Harker’s Quiz Bowl team to two second place finishes), coffee (he’s been to nearly every coffee shop in New York City) and powerlifting (which he learned from a “large Ukrainian dude who had a silver medal”).
“Yi was a genius, but he also worked very hard. He could’ve easily skipped on doing the mundane homework, but he never did,” said Bradley Stoll, upper school math teacher. “To this day, Yi is the one student by whom all others could be measured, if one were to do that. He’s a legend at Harker … really.”
Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Harker Magazine.
“I’m actually still shocked.… When they read out the second place, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting anything,” said a smiling Yi Sun ’06, when he was interviewed in 2009 by NBC 11 after winning second place in the Intel Science Talent Search. “I really didn’t think it went that well.”
But obviously, it did go well for Sun, then a senior at Harker, who competed against 1,500 students to win second place in the prestigious competition.
Sun, who was born in Shanghai and moved all over China, then to Canada and a few cities in the U.S. as a child, arrived at Harker in seventh grade. His natural inclination toward complex math topics was evident to every teacher he encountered, including Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who encouraged him to participate in math competitions.
“He is one of three students who I have taught in 20 years that I remember to have had a genuine love for the subject, which was at a level that is unparalleled,” said Kadam. “Apart from his amazing math abilities, the one thing that I fondly remember about Yi is his immense modesty and his maturity at that age.”
His modesty is still intact even after completing his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master of advanced studies in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s and master’s in mathematics from Harvard University.
Today Sun is a Simons Fellow in the math department at Columbia University. His research interests are in representation theory and integrable systems and their applications to probability and random matrices.
“These are pretty technical subjects that aren’t going to be that relatable, but basically I spend my time researching, writing papers and teaching,” said Sun. “I like to have a balance between the three and working with freshmen is kinda refreshing.”
Sun’s passion for teaching has been fed over the years at the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, where he has been an instructor for seven summers.
“I attended this summer program after doing well in math competitions, which are not very fun to watch,” Sun said with a soft laugh. “The first year I went, I thought I was good at math, but then I was surrounded by these super smart people and very difficult problems.”
As a student, in addition to mathematics, he also loved history, art history, French and English, which allowed him to reflect on various subjects from a different angle.
“Sure, he was exceptionally brilliant, but what I remember most was his smile and how much he loved to laugh,” said Kevin Lum Lung, a college counselor at Harker. “And he always greeted everyone with that wonderful smile, treated everyone with respect and was willing to help anyone who asked.”
Although math is clearly Sun’s passion, other interests include trivia (he captained Harker’s Quiz Bowl team to two second place finishes), coffee (he’s been to nearly every coffee shop in New York City) and powerlifting (which he learned from a “large Ukrainian dude who had a silver medal”).
“Yi was a genius, but he also worked very hard. He could’ve easily skipped on doing the mundane homework, but he never did,” said Bradley Stoll, upper school math teacher. “To this day, Yi is the one student by whom all others could be measured, if one were to do that. He’s a legend at Harker … really.”
Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Harker Magazine.
“I’m actually still shocked.… When they read out the second place, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting anything,” said a smiling Yi Sun ’06, when he was interviewed in 2009 by NBC 11 after winning second place in the Intel Science Talent Search. “I really didn’t think it went that well.”
But obviously, it did go well for Sun, then a senior at Harker, who competed against 1,500 students to win second place in the prestigious competition.
Sun, who was born in Shanghai and moved all over China, then to Canada and a few cities in the U.S. as a child, arrived at Harker in seventh grade. His natural inclination toward complex math topics was evident to every teacher he encountered, including Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who encouraged him to participate in math competitions.
“He is one of three students who I have taught in 20 years that I remember to have had a genuine love for the subject, which was at a level that is unparalleled,” said Kadam. “Apart from his amazing math abilities, the one thing that I fondly remember about Yi is his immense modesty and his maturity at that age.”
His modesty is still intact even after completing his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master of advanced studies in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s and master’s in mathematics from Harvard University.
Today Sun is a Simons Fellow in the math department at Columbia University. His research interests are in representation theory and integrable systems and their applications to probability and random matrices.
“These are pretty technical subjects that aren’t going to be that relatable, but basically I spend my time researching, writing papers and teaching,” said Sun. “I like to have a balance between the three and working with freshmen is kinda refreshing.”
Sun’s passion for teaching has been fed over the years at the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, where he has been an instructor for seven summers.
“I attended this summer program after doing well in math competitions, which are not very fun to watch,” Sun said with a soft laugh. “The first year I went, I thought I was good at math, but then I was surrounded by these super smart people and very difficult problems.”
As a student, in addition to mathematics, he also loved history, art history, French and English, which allowed him to reflect on various subjects from a different angle.
“Sure, he was exceptionally brilliant, but what I remember most was his smile and how much he loved to laugh,” said Kevin Lum Lung, a college counselor at Harker. “And he always greeted everyone with that wonderful smile, treated everyone with respect and was willing to help anyone who asked.”
Although math is clearly Sun’s passion, other interests include trivia (he captained Harker’s Quiz Bowl team to two second place finishes), coffee (he’s been to nearly every coffee shop in New York City) and powerlifting (which he learned from a “large Ukrainian dude who had a silver medal”).
“Yi was a genius, but he also worked very hard. He could’ve easily skipped on doing the mundane homework, but he never did,” said Bradley Stoll, upper school math teacher. “To this day, Yi is the one student by whom all others could be measured, if one were to do that. He’s a legend at Harker … really.”
Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Harker Magazine.
In June 2007, eight Harker students met with fellow students and world leaders in Wismar, Germany, to talk about pressing global issues, and the trip changed their lives. The Harker group was chosen from a field of 63 teams to represent the United States at the J8 (Junior 8) parallel summit. The team met with then-President George W. Bush and the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom at the annual G8 Summit (now the G7 Summit, as Russia no longer participates).
The Aquilones, as they called themselves, were Sudha Gollapudi ’08, Kritika Kailash ’08, David Kastelman ’09, Aarathi Minisandram ’08, Rohit Nalamasu ’08, Kavitha Narra ’08, Kelly O’Reilly ’08 and Rachel Peterson ’08. They were all members of Harker’s Model UN and Amnesty International chapters.
While in Germany, they worked alongside youth teams from the other represented countries and a special contingent of 10 youths from emerging economies and developing nations to write a declaration tackling economic prospects for Africa, HIV/AIDS, new challenges for the global economy and climate change, and energy efficiency. Now, 10 years after leaving Harker, those alumni look back at that wonderful experience.
Sudha Gollapudi
“I continued to stay politically aware all through college,” said Sudha Gollapudi, “probably much more than I would have if I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to participate in the J8 Summit. I have definitely been a lot more politically aware and active since the trip. I follow the news very closely and try to contact local representatives regarding issues that are important to me.”
She also thinks about the trip frequently. “I see updates from the people I’ve added on social media … and it’s been really interesting to see how their lives have progressed over the last 10 years.” What Gollapudi especially remembers about the trip were the passion and ideas of the other participants.
“Everyone was so excited to contribute their thoughts and ideas to help make the world a better place. It was a wonderful and eye-opening experience for me to meet so many people from around the world who cared about the planet as much as I did. It made me feel a lot more connected to the rest of the world.”
Kritika Kailash
The trip launched Kritika Kailash on a different path than she otherwise would have chosen. “The whole J8 experience really pushed me toward the social sector and public policy, and I got to explore these in my classes and activities in college,” she said. “I met many memorable young people fighting for social justice in their countries, and hearing their experiences was really humbling. I’m still friends on Facebook with many of them, and it’s great to see their success.”
Kailash said she thinks about the trip frequently and has stayed interested in economics and politics because of the trip. “We were so excited and thrilled to be so near to the G8 summit. We got to meet Laura Bush, and Kavitha sat with George Bush in a meeting, which was really exciting.” After college, Kailash worked in India for a year with a nonprofit that provided services to urban slums. She is currently at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy completing a Master of Public Policy.
Rachel Peterson
Rachel Peterson noted she has some vibrant memories of the trip. “After the meetings, we had the opportunity to socialize with our fellow participants from across the world,” she said.
“Between the serious conversations and dance parties, I remember being incredibly impressed with their maturity and humor. My second memory was watching Kavitha Narra present to the G8. I remember being incredibly nervous before her presentation. My fears were unnecessary, as she was fantastic.
“I think about the trip when I am reminiscing about high school. It was one of the highlights of my time at Harker. One of my most important, though clichéd takeaways, is that you should take risks as you never know which opportunities will pan out.”
Peterson also delved into public service following her J8 experience. “During college, I interned with Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, focusing on public policy. I graduated Berkeley with a double major in economics and history. After spending a few years at an economic consulting firm, now work for Square in San Francisco.”
David Kastelman
“The trip definitely deepened my interest in development economics,” said David Kastelman, “a topic I took some time to study in more depth in college. While at college, I decided to look more domestically than internationally for work. I was quite interested in combining an interest in economics and an interest in public service. My first job out of college was at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal government’s newest federal agency, which focuses on making sure consumer financial products – things like student loans and mortgages – have sensible regulation. To this day, I definitely still have an interest in social impact, though at the moment, I’m investigating how that might occur through the efficiency and scale that occurs at a technology company.” Kastelman is a product analyst for DoorDash.
Kastelman noted he had many great memories from the trip, but “if I had to pick a single memory, it would probably be the chance to work on a written communiqué, the Wismar Declaration, with several other J8 members. It is a written summary of the thoughts of 74 youths, from 18 different countries, on some of the things the J8 could do to ensure more justice in the world. I remember being really pleased with how the document came together. Kavitha and other students had chance to share that written document with the assembled heads of state – and I remember thinking that was really cool.”
Aarathi Minisandram
One of Aarathi Minisandram’s key memories of the trip “was hearing from Ishmael Beah, author of ‘A Long Way Gone’ and former child soldier from Sierra Leone,” she said. “His speech to us about how youth can change the world was incredibly inspirational.
“I was humbled especially by the individual youth representatives from Third World countries around the globe. My main takeaway from the trip was the importance of education and youth empowerment, so I aimed to get the best education I could and give back to those who grew up less privileged than I.
“The trip heavily influenced my decision to join Teach For America after graduating college. I taught high school math in a New York City public school for two years before pursuing my ultimate career path. In those two years, I worked with incredible students whose backgrounds were vastly different from my own with a goal of instilling my passion for education and youth empowerment onto them.
“One of my AP Calculus students went on to college and pursued a degree in nursing to help improve the health care system. J8 inspired me to continue working with youth throughout my life, and I am very grateful to have had the means and opportunity to participate in the summit,” Minisandram said.
Rohit Nalamasu
Rohit Nalamasu is in his first year of residency on his path to becoming a doctor. His strongest memory of J8 is of “sharing life on a boat [the group was housed on a Polish Navy vessel!] and meeting people from all different backgrounds and cultures,” he said.
“It was fascinating interacting with people who thought differently from ourselves, and truly interacting with them within the framework and close quarters that J8 provided allowed me to grow as a person and consider different trains of thought to the issues we came to solve.”
The trip “absolutely” had an impact on Nalamasu during his college years. “Going on that trip and meeting youth from Tanzania and India, as well as the G8 countries, made me realize how fortunate we are here. Specifically a project I worked closely on was educating myself on the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I was shocked to find the simple things, like accessible condoms that we have here, were missing in large parts of Africa. It … made me realize how different health care here is from there.
“This led me to bioengineering as an undergrad major, to try to create cost-effective health care options for the Third World. In turn, I pursued medicine … in an effort to bring easy-to-create, cost-effective prosthetics and rehab care to the Third World. I’m hoping to get involved in some 3-D printing prosthetics projects coming up!”
He thinks of the trip all the time, he said. “The friendships I made on that trip were lifelong. Currently, one of the other members and I live together while they are in medical school and I am a resident nearby. I think that trip was a once-in-a lifetime experience, and I thank my lucky stars I was blessed to go; I don’t think I would be who I am today without it.”
Kelly O’Reilly
Kelly O’Reilly’s life choices also were affected by her J8 experience. “After J8, I was really interested in the work UNICEF was doing,” she said, “so I got an internship with UNICEF my freshman year of college at Columbia. That was probably the most direct effect of J8 on my college experience. I do think that the experience helped me practice skills that became useful later. We learned to have productive discussions about difficult topics, present ideas clearly, etc.
“The most memorable part of the trip for me was the people,” she continued. “I know we had sessions on current events and issues, but I remember less the details of what we discussed and more the people we had these discussions with. It was really an incredible opportunity to meet and interact with students from all around the world.
“I’m still friends with my fellow teammates, and I remain in touch with some of the people we met. Looking back, I don’t think it hit me until later what a unique opportunity it really was – although I do remember we were in shock when we [were selected to attend]!”
O’Reilly recently completed a Ph.D. in history at Vanderbilt University on the history of community health centers during the War on Poverty, and is now in her first year at Yale Law School.
Kavitha Narra
Kavitha Narra, now in clinical rotations in her third year of medical school, was profoundly influenced by her participation in the summit. “I always found my heart in community work, but since J8 I have been even more invigorated to pursue policy change in my service. In the past few years of medical school, this has taken the shape of expanding our Pomona Community Health Action Team services in my term as [its] president to include free sports physicals to our Pomona Unified School District’s students, many of whom are undocumented community members and have limited access to other health services.”
Narra noted a turning point in her life was caring for a ninth grade boy with cerebral palsy. “In our time together, he would teach me to treat him as Joe, the charmer and social butterfly who loved to chat up the ladies, rather than as a young man living with cerebral palsy,” she said.
“I began to understand his personal strength and capacity to endure as we worked through his pain together, as partners. Through his courage and understanding, Joe sparked my earliest interest in direct patient care.
“With each patient I see, I am reminded that though I am not currently active in international policy change, the strength of our personal connections in life – in this case listening to my patient’s story and learning how to safeguard his or her health – is a meaningful way to create impactful change in the lives of those around me. Health policy may find its way into my life in the future, but for now I am enjoying learning about the human body and translating that into a strong patient-physician bond.
“I was incredibly fortunate to be blessed with the experience of our J8/G8 Summit, with each moment that led up to it and each one that followed,” she said. “I gained a new strength and confidence in our ability to impact change by first creating sincere connections and true friendships with those across our world. Truly, those are the relationships that have inspired my passions in life.”
Editor’s note: You can find the text of the 2007 Wismar Declaration here: https://www.unicef.org/media/files/J8.pdf
Gauss Surgical of Los Altos, founded by Siddarth Satish ’06, was just selected as a winner of the Apple Design Award at the 2018 Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC). The Apple Design Award reflects the best in design, innovation and technology on Apple’s platforms and, Satish noted, “we are extremely humbled and honored to be recognized for this accomplishment.”
The award was for Triton Sponge, an innovative iPad app used in medical operating rooms to quickly calculate and keep track of blood loss collected by surgical sponges and suction canisters. The app uses iOS technologies including Core Image and camera Depth Map to detect sponges, as well as Core ML and machine learning to perform complex blood loss calculations to improve patient care.
Satish noted, “We are well aware that we share this award with all of our collaborators that make the full functioning of our product possible. That starts with the members of our world-class technical team and extends to our amazing users – our hospital partners! We have thousands of nurses and physicians who entrust Gauss to help improve the essential care they give to their patients.”
The company has grown rapidly in the last 18 months and the app is now in use in 40 hospitals, but Satish has not lost sight of the real beneficiaries of the company’s technology. “We know that behind every sponge scanned there is a patient who needs the best that Gauss can offer, he said. “Usually, our patients never know that Triton is there supporting their clinical team, but it’s these patients for whom we dedicate our time and attention to make our product great.”
Satish also was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list this year in the health care category. Forbes noted, “Using the iPad’s built-in camera and computer vision algorithms, Siddarth Satish has developed an FDA-cleared app to monitor blood loss in the OR. It’s been used for thousands of patients to make childbirth safer. The company has raised $24.6 million.”
Amy Jin ’18 drew a fine accolade from the City of San Jose via Councilmember Chappie Jones, who, along with Mayor Sam Liccardo, presented her with a commendation yesterday.
The midday meeting, held in council chambers, celebrated Jin for being named one of five students nationwide to receive the Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing from the Computer Science Teachers Association in March.
Jones, who represents the city council district in which Harker resides, noted, “Amy Jin just graduated from high school and she is already proving to be such an accomplished young person. I was honored to present Amy with a commendation at City Council for being 1 of 5 students in the nation to win the Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing.”
In describing her work, Jin said, “Every year, 7 million patients suffer surgical complications, many of which are caused by poor operative skill due to lack of individualized training and feedback. Improving these surgical outcomes means evaluating surgeon performance, a time-consuming process requiring expert supervision. Thus, I developed a deep-learning approach to automatically assess operative technique, functioning as a ‘coach’ for surgeons.
“I leveraged a convolutional neural network to teach computers to classify and localize surgical instruments in videos in real time. Increasing accuracy for tool presence detection by 28 percent and tracking instrument locations, my approach enabled rich analysis of surgical performance. It expedites surgical skill assessment through automated extraction of visual and quantitative metrics, such as tool usage patterns and trajectories, movement range and motion economy. My results have been validated by surgeons, setting the stage for building a context-aware system that can assist surgeons during procedures and provide targeted feedback.”
Jin’s other recognition includes a best paper award at the 2017 Machine Learning for Health Workshop at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, and being named a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar. Jin is also a John Near Endowment recipient and a National Merit Scholarship awardee. She plays classical violin and has performed at Carnegie Hall. Read more in this Harker News story. https://staging.news.harker.org/senior-amy-jin-one-of-five-in-the-country-to-win-cutler-bell-prize-in-high-school-computing/
Urvi Gupta ’14 is finishing up her years at Stanford this spring, earning a degree and putting on a conference – and it is hard to say which she is most excited about.
The conference was the culmination of a three-month long initiative called Disrupt Diabetes, a unique, patient-forward innovation challenge, said Gupta, who is earning a B.S. in human biology with a concentration in behavioral science and health design. The challenge included 12 teams of five; with speakers, judges, mentors and volunteers, about 80 people attended the conference.
The challenge was designed to put diabetes patients in the driver’s seat of innovation. Twelve patients were partnered with designers and students in March, and these teams spent nine weeks uncovering compelling needs rooted in the patient’s day-to-day experiences.
From there, teams conducted user research, interviewing diverse stakeholders and doing landscape and literature reviews. On May 20, the teams met at the Stanford School of Medicine for a design sprint, where they were joined by a medical expert and thought leader. The overarching goal was to leverage diverse perspectives to generate impactful and viable solutions to patient needs. At the end of the conference, each team pitched its need and solution to a panel of judges, who selected three winning projects to receive a monetary award and mentorship to continue work after the challenge.
Gupta was ecstatic about the results. “Over the past few years, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to delve into the health care space from a variety of angles,” she said, “but one of the primary perspectives has been from the lens of innovation and specifically leveraging design thinking (a problem solving framework) as a tool to create change within health care.
“Through a variety of projects, I’ve become extremely passionate about elevating the patient voice, a point of view very rarely heard from, despite the fact that they should be at the center of every conversation. In the spaces that I’ve been a part of, there has been a huge push to begin including patients in these processes, whether innovation at the systems level or placing a bigger emphasis on their experiences through the patient-doctor visit.
“However, it still felt like there was something missing. It is incredible that patients are at the table (in some places), but I wanted them to be spearheading the conversation. Hence, my co-director, Divya Gopisetty, and I came up with a new patient-forward innovation framework, which sought to promote patient partnership. But innovation can’t be done successfully within a silo – all perspectives and expertise are needed. Therefore, we also made sure to create multi-stakeholder teams with the focus of dismantling power hierarchies that typically exist in order to promote the most fruitful collaborations.
“We were specifically drawn to diabetes because of the strength and resilience individuals with diabetes have. As in most chronic conditions, patients are truly the experts on their own conditions, serving as their own doctors for the 99 percent of the time they are not seeing their physicians. We wanted to harness this expertise and use it as a driving force towards more meaningful innovation. Thus, Disrupt Diabetes was born.”
Trying to change medical care in the United States is a gargantuan job, but Gupta was willing to take some first steps. “I think the biggest challenge was juggling being a student and trying to plan this conference; my co-director and I often joked about how we wish we could be doing the conference full time.
“We received so much energy from everyone we talked to – from physicians across the country who gave their time to two students they didn’t know to the patients who became our powerhouses to our mentors, everyone expressed how necessary Disrupt Diabetes was in order to create a larger communal shift in our thinking around innovation. We felt so validated in the things that we have felt frustrated by in our experiences and were trying to fix within diabetes innovation with Disrupt. That energy is what really kept us going during this year.”
The results have been worth it, Gupta said. Three winning teams received monetary awards and mentorship to continue their projects. “Two of these teams had overlapping solutions and were chosen to share an award and collaborate for an even more impactful product down the line,” Gupta said. “This was a huge win for me because one of our primary goals with this initiative was to create deep collaboration between different stakeholders. The judges wanting to promote this collaboration was a sign that we were able to do that. The teams also have the opportunity to present their progress at a diabetes innovation conference in November.”
One other result was the creation of an “innovation framework which can be applied to a variety of conditions and may become an annual conference,” Gupta said. “Many of the people who participated in Disrupt, whether it was for the full two-plus months or just the day of, wished for us to continue this next year.”
Another goal Gupta is pleased to have reached is the creation of a community of Disruptors. “The relationships that came out of Disrupt were so genuine,” she said. “Because everyone came from a vastly different background, each individual had so much to bring to the table and were respected for it. In this process of empathy and listening, beautiful bonds were formed, which will hopefully grow as they take what they saw and felt at Disrupt back into their own communities.”
Gupta plans to continue her education in medical school, but first she is off to South Africa for a three-week conservation photography project, “which I’m incredibly excited about,” she said. While applying to medical schools, she plans to stay in the Bay Area and “work to further health care innovation and elevate all voices in health care.”
“I am so incredibly grateful for all that I have learned from directing Disrupt Diabetes,” Gupta added. “I have grown in so many ways as a learner, a designer and future health care professional, and I want to extend my gratitude to everyone who has supported me on this journey. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience bringing together such amazing minds and seeing the power of compassion in creating a brighter health care future.”
Ranjita Raghavan ’08 had a fascinating break from her studies: After three years of medical school, she took a year off to work as a medical producer for “The Dr. Oz Show” in season nine.
“I was able to bring my knowledge of medicine to the world of writing and producing,” Raghavan said. “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. I am heading back to USC to finish off my medical degree in a few weeks, but was lucky enough to cap off the experience by witnessing our show’s Emmy win for Best Informative Talk Show.”
Raghavan noted the medical producers are on the show now and then, and she gets to be the “expert” on the last segment of the show, airing on May 21, so be sure to tune in to see her on the show!
Huge congratulations to Suchita Nety ’13 and Angela Ma ’14 for being awarded 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans!
This unique program honors 30 outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate degrees in the United States. Each of the recipients, selected from more than 1,700 applicants, was chosen for his or her potential to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture or his or her academic field. Recipients receive up to $90,000 in funding toward their education over two years.
Nety’s and Ma’s complete bios are on the website, but here is a quick summary of what these women have been doing since leaving Harker.
Ma’s award will support her in her pursuit of a Ph.D. in business economics at Harvard University. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard, has been editor-in-chief of the Harvard Economics Review and is a John Harvard Scholar. Ma was an avid ballet dancer while at Harker, and she danced, choreographed and was treasurer for the Harvard Ballet Company. She plans to become an economics professor and is interested in financial crisis management.
Nety will use the award to continue her work on a Ph.D. in biological engineering at MIT and an M.D. at Harvard. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from CalTech and spent four years working with protein-based reporters for ultrasound imaging, and earned a number of accolades including the 2016 George W. Housner Prize for Academic Excellence and Original Research, the Arie J. Haagen-Smit Memorial Award and the Hallett Smith Prize for Essay Devoted to Shakespeare. Along with her academic efforts, Nety has volunteered at a literacy nonprofit, attained professional status in Bharatanatyam, a style of Indian classical dance, and choreographs hip-hop. Her goal is to work with patients as an oncologist and develop molecular tools to assist in cell-based therapies.
The Harker community was delighted to hear that Surbhi Sarna ’03 sold her medical device company, nVision Medical, for $275 million to Boston Scientific, but the real story is about Sarna’s journey to help women who were being underserved in health care. The story is well-told in the Forbes article that announced the sale, and the Harker community has had the moving experience of watching Sarna travel her path to help others. CBS also did a news story on her.
After graduating from Harker, Sarna studied molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as a clinical scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After graduating from Berkeley in 2007, she worked as an engineer for medical device companies Abbott Vascular and BioCardia. In 2009, only six years out of Harker, she founded venture-backed nVision Medical, dedicated to developing technology to help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer. Following a successful clinical trial, the company received FDA approval for its device in November 2015. Harker has been honored to follow her progress.
In 2013 Sarna took time from her busy schedule to be the keynote speaker at the Harker Research Symposium, where she related the circumstances that fueled her drive to a crowd of about 400. After suffering from an ovarian cyst in her early teens, she became determined to create better conditions in the field of female health.
In January 2014, Sarna was named to Forbes prestigious “30 Under 30” list in the medical category. At that point, her company had raised $4.5 million from Catalyst Health Ventures, Draper Associates and Astia, a group that assists female entrepreneurs.
Sarna noted at the time, “It is a great honor to be chosen as one of Forbes ’30 Under 30.’ I know Harker has a lot do to with my drive to be an entrepreneur and I’m grateful for all of the teachers that inspired me while I was there.”
In the summer of 2016, Sarna was interviewed for an article in Harker Quarterly on alumni in science, in which she spoke of FDA approval for her device. “It was lots of work, but it couldn’t be more worth it. … From a dream, to a slide deck, to a prototype, to raising money and hiring a team, to first use in a person, to 90 patients successfully treated, to FDA approval!” she said in the article. Offering advice to other recent graduates interested in pursuing STEM and research education, she stressed the importance of seeking out mentors and advisors.
In 2017, Sarna was presented with the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award by Harker’s Office of Alumni Relations and was honored at Homecoming halftime.
In the 2016 Harker Quarterly article, Sarna had advice for anyone with a quest like hers. “Take meetings with everybody, even when you don’t understand the direct benefit in doing so. Cast your net wide to open up doors,” she said. It is also important to follow your own passions, she added. “I started out as a patient, and I had to believe there were better options out there for women like me. I wanted to make a mark, and at the end of the day you have to follow your passions. It’s extremely rewarding to now be in a career providing service to others.”