This article originally appeared in the winter 2016 Harker Magazine.
Class of 1982
Dana Lurie married her best friend of 10 years, Dalila Vargas, on Oct. 22. Janean Mariani and Michele Magboo, along with their husbands, helped Dana and Dalila celebrate the day. In 2015 the couple spent two months driving around the country in a camper van, visiting as many national parks as possible. Dana is looking forward to the 35th reunion and seeing as many classmates as possible! Pictured with Dana and Dalila is Janean.
Liz Robertson reports that she and her husband, Keil Albert, are active supporters of their son’s parent participation school, Stevenson PACT in Mountain View. Keil works with the parent education committee and Liz with the garden committee. In past years Keil also has taught science. Keil is a volunteer golf coach at First Tee of Silicon Valley and is celebrating his 22nd year at Geoconsultants in San Jose, locating water well sites and designing production wells. Liz is celebrating her 12th year at SciGene in Sunnyvale, applying her marketing skills and running the company, which manufactures instruments and reagents for genetic testing, for the president/owner, who lives in Pasadena. “Our new ‘favorite’ vacation destination is Austin, Texas, which we visit twice a year since my parents and brother relocated there about 10 years ago,” Liz reports. “We love to swim, golf, go to waterparks and attend concerts in my parents’ new home city of Georgetown, an Austin suburb, which has the ‘Most Beautiful Town Square’ in Texas. We are all looking forward to a Christmas cruise with my folks and my brother’s family (10 in all) to the Caribbean. We have our Stingray City/Dolphin Adventure shore excursion in Grand Cayman already booked! I am also the webmaster for the California Groundwater Association.”
They say you can’t go back, but you can – after you’ve graduated college (Harvard!) and been in the work force for a decade – anyway. Karan Lodha ’04 spent the last five months substituting for Harker teacher Cyrus Merrill, who has been out on paternity leave. Lodha taught grade 8 history classes and had his own learning experiences along the way.
“It’s been a thrilling semester learning how to be a guide and a mentor for my students,” said Lodha. “In the first few weeks, there were moments where I felt like an impostor, but I was lucky to have two weeks with Mr. Merrill in which he taught me how to balance sharing my personality with the students, while maintaining the order and discipline necessary to be an effective teacher. Of course, the most rewarding part has been watching my students learn and grow over the last five months.”
Lodha reached a point in his post-academic career where he was looking for a way to contribute more to society. “I’ve often thought about a career transition to teaching,” he said. “Although I enjoyed my experience in the technology industry, I was always searching for a way to have a more direct impact. I fondly remembered my experiences as a student at Harker, and I stayed in touch with some of my former teachers – and it struck me just how much they had shaped my life.”
After a frustrating experience at his last job, Lodha decided to try moving into full-time teaching. He reached out to former teachers, including Bradley Stoll, his former calculus teacher at Harker. “Mr. Stoll was kind enough to arrange for me to come visit Harker to shadow in the history and math departments, which included sitting in on a class with Donna Gilbert (my former AP European History teacher!).
“Spending those two days at Harker made me realize how connected I still felt to the community here. I visited the Harker careers page and, with the encouragement of Ms. Gilbert and Ruth Meyer in the high school history department, I applied to the opening for the long-term substitute to fill in for Cyrus Merrill while he was on paternity leave.”
Once in the classroom, Lodha had to make it all work. “I had two big challenges,” he said. “The first was learning to call my former teachers and coaches – now my colleagues – by their first names! It was awkward for a few weeks, and even now, I have to fight the feeling that I’m being disrespectful, even when I know I’m not.
“In the classroom, the most challenging aspect for me was learning what pace, depth and difficulty was appropriate for my students. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the eighth grade, so I often found myself leaning on my colleagues, especially Ramsay Westgate, a fellow eighth grade history teacher, to get a better grasp of how best to adapt material, homework and tests to make them accessible to all my students. Of course, many of my students weren’t too shy about expressing their own opinions on the matter!”
The return has been rewarding. “The most fun part of teaching at Harker has been being part of the larger community. I’ve loved going to my students’ concerts, performances and sporting events. After all, Harker students are talented in so many ways, and it’s great to see my students express their passions outside the classroom. As a former Harker athlete and debater, I also still feel the pull of the rivalries with other schools from all those years ago!”
Being on the other side of the teacher’s desk has been enlightening and memorable. “Almost every day and every week has something to remember: a student exceeding his or her potential in an unusual way, a particularly creative project or interpretation that caught my eye, or a joke or a moment that had the whole class in laughter,” said Lodha. “My recollection of this semester will be like one of those collages that has many small photos creating a larger one; there may be one or two bigger themes, but it’s those hundreds of individual memories that really build up to what I’ll take into the years of teaching to come.”
And those years will gain traction at Harker. “I was fortunate enough to receive an offer to join the middle school math department next year,” said Lodha, “so I will be transitioning subjects but remaining a part of this wonderful community.”
Maverick McNealy ’13 was named one of three finalists for The Ben Hogan Award, given annually to the top men’s college golfer. Colonial Country Club, Friends of Golf and the Golf Coaches Association of America take into account all collegiate and amateur competitions over the last year when selecting the finalists. McNealy joins Bill Haas of Wake Forest as the only three-time finalist for this award. The winner “will receive the first exemption into the PGA Tour’s 2018 Dean & DeLuca Invitational, as well as earn a $30,000 grant for its [college’s] men’s golf scholarship program,” according to thebenhoganaward.org.
This is the sixth time a Stanford golfer has made it to the final three for this award, of which only one Cardinal golfer has won.
Among his many accolades, McNealy is currently No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and was recently named the winner of the 2017 Byron Nelson Award.
Ashvin Swaminathan ’13 was recently awarded Harvard’s David Mumford Undergraduate Mathematics Prize, which is given to the “most promising” outstanding seniors who have chosen mathematics as a concentration, according to the Harvard University website. Swaminathan will graduate from Harvard this month with degrees in mathematics and physics. Last month he was awarded a Soros Fellowship for New Americans, earning additional funding for his graduate studies in mathematics, which he plans to begin in the fall at Princeton.
Ashvin Swaminathan ’13 was just awarded a Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans honors the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. Each year, the program provides funding for graduate studies for 30 immigrants and children of immigrants “who are poised to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture or their academic field,” according to the website, which goes on to note that each fellow receives up to $90,000 in financial support over two years.
Swaminathan, a senior at Harvard, is graduating in May with degrees in mathematics and physics. In the fall, he will start his graduate studies in mathematics at Princeton. Other awardees include a jazz trumpeter at The Juilliard School, a printmaker at Yale and a philosophy major at Columbia. Swaminathan was valedictorian for his graduating class at Harker and earned a number of distinctions while still in high school, including being named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search (now the Regeneron Science Talent Search) and a John Near Scholar Endowment recipient. Amazing work, Ashvin! Best wishes for a continued great career! The photo is from the 2013 Near-Mitra Endowment reception.
Currently ranked No. 1 on the World Amateur Golf Ranking and tied with Tiger Woods on the Stanford all-time wins list, Maverick McNealy ’13 has a lot to be proud of. In his final year at Stanford, McNealy recently added to his prestigious career when he received the 2017 Byron Nelson Award. Only graduating seniors are eligible for the award, and a golfer’s entire collegiate and academic career, plus his integrity and character, are considered when selecting the winner.
“It is an absolute honor to be the recipient of this award, one that carries on Mr. Nelson’s legacy,” said McNealy in a statement. “I am humbled to be thought of as an exemplar of what he stood for, and his example will continue to serve as a great model in golf and life. I look forward to the challenge of representing and upholding the values of this award to the best of my abilities.”
Elisabeth Siegel ’16, a Mitra Grant recipient during her senior year at Harker, has had her Mitra paper, titled “Ideology through Subliminal Propaganda: A Critique of Portrayals of Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli and Western Online News Media during Operation Protective Edge,” published by Yale Review of International Studies! http://yris.yira.org/essays/2005.
Harker history teacher Damon Halback, who mentored Siegel while she wrote the paper, spotted Siegel’s Facebook post, and noted she had added a call to action to current Harker students:
“HARKER STUDENTS — if you still have the chance to apply for a Near/Mitra grant, PLEASE do. It was definitely one of the highlights of my time in high school. It took me on so many unexpected twists and turns, from learning practical skills like writing natural language processing stuff to aid a social science paper as well as not leaving footnotes till the last week before the due date, as well as less tangible things, like determination and self-drive, how much of my life I’d taken for granted, and much more. DO IT!”
Halback also added a special kudos to his colleagues who help administer and manage the endowment papers process. “This is a credit to all the hard work put in every year by Donna [Gilbert, history department chair], Sue [Smith, library director], Meredith [Cranston, upper school librarian] and Lauri [Vaughan, upper school campus librarian] to make Near/Mitra such a wonderful example of the scholarly values that Harker promotes,” he said.
The deadline to apply for a John Near or Mitra Family endowment grant is April 21 at 6 p.m. Details can be found here: http://library.harker.org/Scholars/ScholarApps
Harker alumnus Ayush Midha ’15 is still winning debate awards – now as a Harvard student! He and his Harvard debate partner won the Rex Copeland Award, which is presented to the top college debate team in the nation.
Midha and partner won several invitational tournaments, giving them the best overall record of the year. The award was announced at the National Debate Tournament, held March 24-27 at the University of Kansas. Other teams in the top five included Georgetown University, Wake Forest University and two teams from U.C. Berkeley.
Harker debate coaches Greg and Jenny Achten attended the tournament and were very proud to see Midha receive the Copeland and to make it to the quarterfinals of the tournament. “It is a ton of fun to watch our alums debate so successfully at the collegiate level,” said Jenny Achten. Greg Achten added that Midha’s debate achievements are especially laudable alongside his rigorous premed course of study.
The Harker Alumni Association held a special Harker Family & Alumni Dinner on the Bund in Shanghai in March to celebrate the 35 years Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, has been working at Harker. The crowd, about 75 strong, enjoyed an evening cruise, during which the Alumni Association awarded Rosenthal the Phyllis Carley Award, presented each spring to an individual who has devoted time and energy, and made significant contributions, toward advancing The Harker School’s programs. Former boarding students and alumni gathered to celebrate the award and the contributions Rosenthal has made over his many years at Harker.
Hollis Thompson, who attended Harker from 1996 to 2001 for kindergarten through fourth grade, recently signed back-to-back 10-day contracts with the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans. After his time at Harker, Thompson moved to Southern California before attending Georgetown University and going undrafted in the NBA draft. Thompson then played in the NBA Development League before signing with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2013. He was released by Philadelphia earlier this year, and was soon acquired by another NBA Development League team before being picked up by the Pelicans for a 10-day contract. Thompson averaged 5.4 points and 2.7 rebounds in five games during his first contract with New Orleans before signing another 10-day contract on Sunday.
Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team had a good week as it went 2-1 over its last three games. In a 10-3 win over Newark, Mahlet Demissachew, grade 12, led the Eagles with four goals and an assist, while Lauren Russell, grade 11, and Elise Mayer, grade 10, added two goals each. Later in the week, in a close 9-8 loss to Los Altos, Demissachew once again led the scoring with four goals with Russell adding two goals. Finally, in a 14-9 win over York, Demissachew scored six goals to lead the way for the Eagles, with Mayer chipping in three goals. This week, the Eagles host Castilleja on Tuesday and Mitty on Friday.
Softball
The softball team defeated Terra Nova 14-4 last week, going to 2-0 on the season. This week the Eagles host Yerba Buena on Wednesday and El Camino on Friday.
Track and Field
The track and field team had a very strong showing at the Willow Glen Invitational over the weekend. Highlights included Grace Koonmen, grade 11, tying for fourth place in the 100-meter; Anthony Contreras, grade 11, finishing eighth in the 200; Niki Iyer, grade 12, taking third in the 800; Sameer Prakash, grade 9, placing fourth in his first-ever hurdle race; Tiffany Shou, grade 11, and Davis Howard, grade 12, setting personal records in the shot put; and Rishi Chopra, grade 11, and Aman Ahluwalia, grade 11, setting personal record in the 800. This Saturday, the Eagles will compete at both the King’s Track Classic at The King’s Academy and the K-Bell Invitational at Bellarmine.
Boys Tennis
Last week, the boys tennis team defeated Sacred Heart Prep 7-0 before traveling to Clovis over the weekend to compete at the California Tennis Classic. The Eagles went 4-1 taking third place in the Division 3 bracket, with wins over Clovis West, Los Altos and Buchanan. It’s a busy week for the boys as they take on Crystal Springs Uplands on Tuesday, Menlo on Wednesday and The King’s Academy on Thursday.
Baseball
The Harker baseball team fell to Del Mar 11-1 last week, before defeating O’Connell 7-6 on Saturday. In the loss to the Dons, Nate Kelly, grade 11, drove in the only Eagle run. Varun Haltore, grade 12, led the offense in the win over O’Connell driving in two runs. Next up for the Eagles is a trip to Westmoor in Daly City on Thursday, followed by a home game versus Pinewood on Friday.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team finished fifth out of 24 teams at the Cowboy Classic in Livermore last week. Daulet Tuleubayev, grade 11, had a great showing as he ended in a tie for first place. This week, the Eagles take on Valley Christian at Coyote Creek, followed by a match with Crystal Springs Uplands at The Peninsula Golf and Country Club. They then travel to Nevada to compete in the Pahrump Valley Invitational on Thursday.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team improved to 4-0 on the season as it defeated Monterey 3-0, Oak Grove 3-0 and Cupertino 3-1 last week. This week, they travel to Monta Vista on Wednesday and Los Altos on Friday.
Swim
The swim team competes next at the Small School Invitational at Sacred Heart Prep on March 18.