On June 7, Harker student Dolan Dworak, grade 7, and upper school science teacher Kate Schafer will head to the Alaskan coastline to take part in an expedition kickstarted by the Anchorage Museum and the Alaska SeaLife Center, which will be the subject of a Web series planned by National Geographic. Dworak and Schafer will be part of an international team of scientists and artists that will observe the effects of garbage islands on marine life. The work performed during this expedition will later be turned into an exhibition at the Anchorage Museum called GYRE, which will appear at museums throughout the United States.
Dworak, who has spent three years working with the San Francisco-based Sea Scavenger Conservancy to help clean up the earth’s oceans, will act as the expedition’s social media coordinator at the Alaska SeaLife Center, located in Seward. Schafer, who has a background in marine biology and a passion for observing the effects of human activity on ocean ecosystems, will help develop the educational portions of the GYRE exhibition with the Anchorage Museum in preparation for the exhibition’s launch in February 2014.
Harker students earned several top placements at the California State Science Fair in April. In the senior division, Andrew Zhang, grade 10, and his partner took second place in the physics and astronomy category, classmate Sriram Somasundaram earned third place in microbiology, Christopher Fu and Daniel Pak, both grade 11, took fourth place in zoology, Nikash Shankar was awarded fourth place in pharmacology/toxicology and sophomore Rishabh Jain received an honorable mention in mathematics and software. In the junior division, Venkat Sankar, grade 8, won first place in environmental sciences.
Of all the remarkable milestones Harker students achieve, none is as great or as meaningful as their final rite of passage when they receive their diplomas. The pride was palpable on May 24 at the Mountain Winery as the Class of 2013 collected their diplomas from Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Ashvin Swaminathan represented his class as valedictorian, and his speech found a perfect balance between honoring the past and becoming ready for the future. He posed the question, “By what means did every one of us manage to triumph over our tribulations?” The answer? “Our parents.” Swaminathan adjured his classmates, “Let us vow to continue to treat our parents as our heroes,” to honor them and make them proud.
He asked his peers to vow to “never compromise on the value system that our teachers have established for us,” adding, “Let us vow to share our leftover resources with those who are not as fortunate as we are.”
The teachers who had led Swaminathan and his classmates on what he called a “beautiful scholastic safari” were on their feet moments after his talk concluded.
Keynote speaker Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an organization dedicated to volunteerism which has nurtured projects resulting in the gifting of millions of dollars of services.
Mehta’s engaging speech was a rallying cry to fix what is “at the core of all of today’s most pressing challenges: … we have become profoundly disconnected.” He says humans are wired to give and to help each other, and asked, “Will you, Class of 2013, step up to rebuild a culture of trust, empathy and compassion?”
There are three keys to living a life of giving, Mehta said. The first is to give, the second is to receive, and the third is to dance. “Our biggest problem with giving and receiving is that we try and track it. And when we do that, we lose the beat.”
Nikoloff also had an opportunity to offer some words of wisdom to the class, which he did in a light-hearted talk titled “Love like a Labrador,” meaning unconditionally and with joy.
For this year’s spring musical, the Harker Conservatory returned to a familiar favorite, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” directed by Laura Lang-Ree.
Set in pre-statehood Oklahoma in the summer of 1906, the production centers around the love triangle between Laurey Williams (Cecilia Lang-Ree, grade 12), niece of the respected community figure Aunt Eller (Cristina Jerney, grade 12), lovesick cowboy Curly McLain (Ian Richardson, grade 11) and the mysterious and dark farmhand Jud Fry (Justin Gerard, grade 12).
Meanwhile, the flirtatious Ado Annie Carnes, played by junior Shenel Ekici, reaches a crisis of conscience when she realizes her attraction to the Persian merchant Ali Hakim (Rohan Chandra, grade 12), despite her engagement to the good-hearted but fiscally irresponsible Will Parker (Kevin Moss, grade 11).
Drama and comedy naturally ensue, as conflict grows between Curly and Jud over who will win Laurey’s favor, and Ali Hakim tries to undo the situation involving himself and Ado Annie.
The huge upper school cast included several grade 5 students, all of whom gave splendid performances. Musical director Catherine Snider led the “Oklahoma!” band, whose interpretation of the beloved score was both accurate and inspired, providing the perfect backing for the student singers.
In order to ensure the best performance possible by the students, Lang-Ree enlisted the services of dialect coach Kimily Conkle, who instructed the cast in how to effectively convey the time and place of the musical with the right pronunciations and inflections. Fight choreographer Dexter Fidler was also brought in to direct the fight scenes, most notably during the iconic 15-minute dream ballet that closes Act I.
Crucial to all Harker musical productions is the set design, and longtime designer Paul Vallerga came through with a set that remarkably evoked the plains of the early 1900s. Harker students, as always, did a terrific job as the show’s crew, managing the stage, working the light board, assisting with wardrobe and attending to all the other important tasks required to execute a production of this caliber. Meanwhile, sound engineer Brian Larsen, lighting designer Natti Pierce-Thomson and costume designer Caela Fujii were again indispensable.
Harker’s eighth annual Research Symposium drew more than 400 attendees, who marveled at the many exhibits, student presentations, breakout sessions and guest speakers that have made the symposium into one of the school’s signature events, unique for being organized largely by the student-run WiSTEM, chemistry, research and Sci Fy clubs.
The upper school campus was abuzz with activity as early as 8 a.m., when the symposium officially began. One of the busiest areas for the entire day was the Nichols Hall atrium and rotunda, where exhibitors such as Google, Ericsson and Symmetricom offered demonstrations of their products and talked with attendees, in addition to providing a mere glimpse at the wealth of career opportunities available to students of the sciences.
One of the more impressive pieces of technology on display was Anatomage’s “virtual cadaver,” a 3-D rendering of a human body that could be examined in amazing detail via a large touch screen, enabling classrooms without access to a real cadaver to study the human body up close.
Elsewhere in the atrium, SeaLife Aquarium Maintenance presented various sea creatures for visitors to view and handle. East Bay Cardiovascular and Thoracic Associates, represented by Harker parent Murali Duran (Rohan, grade 9; Lea, grade 11; Roshan, grade 12), had a heart station set up where visitors could learn how to perform sutures using store-bought pig hearts.
A large portion of the event was devoted to formal talks, also known as breakout sessions, delivered by Harker students. In these talks, students gave presentations on scientific research projects that they had done, many of which earned the students finalist or semifinalist placings in the Siemens Competition and the Intel Science Talent Search. In addition to demonstrating the high level of research being conducted by the students, these sessions also offered students the chance to show their research to (and take questions from) members of the greater scientific community.
The breakout sessions covered a wide variety of topics. Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 12, presented an analysis of surreal numbers, for which he was named an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist and a Siemens Competition regional finalist. At another session, senior Rohan Chandra, another Siemens regional finalist, discussed the brain’s reaction to various features of Beethoven’s famous fifth symphony. Meanwhile, Siemens semifinalists Anika Gupta and Saachi Jain, both grade 11, presented their research on how an uncharacterized gene may have a hand in lowering the risk of ulcers and gastric cancer.
Middle school students also had their chance to shine, showing the results of their work with the many impressive poster presentations set up in the gym. The enthusiasm of these students was evident as they explained their projects and their implications to the fascinated passersby.
As always, the lunchtime chemistry magic show was a treat for the midday audience, who oohed and aahed at brilliant flames, exploding eggs, liquid-carbon-frozen bananas and other wonders of chemistry, as they enjoyed food freshly prepared by Harker’s kitchen staff.
Also during lunch was a special talk by Nikita Sinha ’09, currently in her senior year at the California Institute of Technology, who discussed the research she was conducting for her senior thesis, as well as the life experiences that led her to choose medical research as a career.
The first of the keynote speakers at the symposium was Dr. Kristian Hargadon, assistant professor of biology at Hampden-Sydney College. Hargadon took the morning audience on a journey through his progression from a young student athlete with dreams of being an NBA star to becoming a decorated cancer researcher, in addition to discussing some of his current work.
Surbhi Sarna ’03, this year’s alumni speaker, shared her story with the early afternoon audience. After suffering from an ovarian cyst in her early teens, Sarna became determined to create better conditions in the field of female health. Toward this end, she founded the venture-backed nVision Medical in 2009 to develop technology that will help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer.
This year’s featured speaker was Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr. David Baltimore, whose work at the California Institute at Technology has recently yielded a method for preventing the spread of HIV. Baltimore provided an overview of how his process of injecting a harmless virus containing antibodies into the muscles of mice prevented HIV infection. Baltimore and his team are currently preparing to test this process in humans.
Another highlight of the event was a special panel of notable women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which included such inspirational figures as Barbara Jones, project manager at the IBM Almaden Research Center; Monica Kumar, senior director of product marketing at Oracle; Tian Zhang, senior software engineer at IBM; and alumna Sinha.
The panel discussed the increasingly important role of women in the sciences, offering their insights into their respective fields as well as advice to the audience of young attendees on how to transform their love of science into successful careers.
The symposium closed with a panel of students and teachers providing students and parents with information on Harker’s research program and the various opportunities available, such as the Siemens and Intel contests, internships and research classes.
Harker community members were devastated when told Monday afternoon that longtime employee Sandy Padgett, co-director and founder of the upper school’s college counseling department, was killed in an incident in her Redwood City home late Sunday night.
School counselors, as well as grief counselors from The Centre for Living with Dying, assisted the administration in breaking the news to the faculty and students. Grief counselors were on campus through Wednesday and remain on call to assist the community in dealing with this tragic loss.
Testimonials began appearing on alumni Facebook pages as soon as the news became public, with many, many former students thanking “Ms. Padgett” for inspiring them to pursue their dreams and helping them choose what many called their “dream college.”
The college counseling department is working with Padgett’s current junior students to ensure college counseling sessions will continue as scheduled.
Padgett had an illustrious career guiding students. Before joining Harker in 1998, she taught AP English at San Carlos High School; was a counselor at Palo Alto High School; was a career placement counselor at Occidental College; and was a college counselor at the American School in London, the Westridge School in Pasadena and the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks.
Padgett held two lifetime credentials from the state of California: high school teaching and high school counseling. She was a member of the National Association of College Admission Counselors, Western Association of College Admission Counselors and Bay Area Association of Independent School College Counselors.
Condolences can be sent to nicoleh@harker.org and cards can be mailed to The Harker School, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA, 95129; the school will forward to the family. Memorial service plans are pending.
Lower, middle and upper school instrumentalists displayed their talents for an evening audience at the Spring Concert, held Apr. 12 at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose. Students performed in various groups, performing orchestral music from a wide selection of styles and time periods.
Toni Woodruff conducted the first performers of the evening, the Lower School String Ensemble, who played a medley of American songs arranged by Bob Phillips, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Finale from “Serenade for Strings.” Louis Hoffman then conducted the Lower School Orchestra, who performed Beethoven’s famous “Ode to Joy” and “Aragonaise” by Georges Bizet.
The Middle School Orchestra then introduced themselves to the show by teaming up with the Lower School Orchestra for a performance of a segment of Mozart’s Symphony No. 25. Harker Winds, the grade 6 wind ensemble, then performed “You Are My Sunshine” with guest conductor Paul Woodruff, who also led the grade 6 group Harker Strings in their renditions of “Irish Tune From County Derry” by Percy Grainger and a string arrangement of the popular Coldplay song “Clocks.” Woodruff stepped in that evening for conductor Dave Hart, who was on paternity leave.
Woodruff remained onstage to conduct the Grade 6 Orchestra’s performances of a medley of tunes from the “Harry Potter” film series and Johann Strauss’ “Radetzky March,” and also conducted the Grade 7 and 8 Orchestra, who played four pieces, including “Andham,” composed by Meghana Karinthi, grade 7, and the “Symphonic Suite” from the “Lord of the Rings” films.
After a brief intermission, the Upper School Orchestra, directed by Chris Florio, took the stage to perform the final series of songs for the night, which included “The Moldau” from Bedrich Smetana’s “Ma Vlast,” Max Bruch’s “Romanze for Viola and Orchestra,” featuring Nayeon Kim, grade 12, and the final piece of the night, “Huapango” by Jose Pablo Moncayo.
It was again a successful year at the Synopsys Championship for Harker middle and upper school students. Andrew Jin, grade 10, in the bioinformatics category, and Anika Radia-Dixit, grade 12, in medicine/health/gerontology, were both awarded grand prizes and an expenses-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which takes place May 12-17 in Phoenix, Ariz. Venkat Sankar, grade 8, received a middle school special prize and a trip to the California State Fair in Los Angeles for his project in the environmental sciences category.
Harker was also named one of the top three high schools at the event, and upper school science teacher Chris Spenner was one of the top three high school teachers. Thomas Artiss, middle school science teacher, was named most promising new teacher.
A total of 26 upper school students were winners of various awards at this year’s contest. In the biochemistry/microbiology category, Sriram Somasundaram, grade 10, earned a First Award, while classmate Stanley Xie won a Second Award along with Pranav Reddy, also grade 10, who also received an Honorable Mention Certificate of Achievement from MedImmune.
Rohith Bhethanabotla, grade 11,won a First Award in chemistry, while fellow junior Mercedes Chien received a Second Award in the same category. Freshmen Rishabh Chandra and Jonathan Ma and juniors Avinash Nayak and Shreyas Parthasarathy all won Second Awards in physics.
Rishabh Jain, grade 10, won a second award in computers/mathematics as well as a First Place award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which included a certificate and programmable robot. In the same category, Cindy Liu, grade 10, earned an Honorable Mention, and juniors Brian Tuan and Andrew Wang each received Honorable Mention Student Awards and certificates from the Association for Computing Machinery.
In earth/space sciences, senior Andrew Luo received a Second Award, and junior Stephanie Chen and sophomore Matthew Huang each received Certificates of Achievement from the NASA Ames Research Center.
Neil Movva, grade 10, earned several recognitions in engineering, including a First Award, a Certificate of Achievement and $50 voucher from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, an Honorable Mention from the U.S. Army and a Special Award from Varian Medical Systems, which included a $75 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. In the same category, Ramakrishnan Menon, grade 12, received a Second Award, was named a second-place student by the American Vacuum Society and was awarded a $50 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. Michael Kling, grade 11, also received a Second Award in this category and a Certificate of Achievement and Pewter Medallion Voucher from the Yale Science and Engineering Association. Yet another winner in engineering was Alison Rugar, grade 12, who earned a Third Place Award from A Society for Materials which included a $50 prize, a subscription to Popular Science magazine and a Certificate of Achievement. Finally, Avi Agarwal, grade 11, received an Honorable Mention.
In addition to Andrew Jin’s Grand Prize, the bioinformatics category also saw Steven Wang, grade 10, earn a First Award and a first place $150 cash prize and Certificate of Achievement and an award from the University of California, San Francisco Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology.
Other upper school winners were juniors Daniel Pak and Christopher Fu, who both received Second Awards in Zoology, senior Suchita Nety, who received a First Award in medicine/health/gerontology and sophomore Nikash Shankar, also a First Award winner in medicine/health/gerontology, who also won a second place prize of $200 from Rambus, honorable mention from MedImmune and an invite to the California States Science Fair.
The middle school had 16 students winning awards this year, including grade 8 students Avi Khemani and Manan Shah, who earned First Awards, and Jonathan Liu and Justin Xie, also both grade 8, who received Honorable Mentions in biochemistry/microbiology. In engineering, eighth graders Peter Wu, David Zhu and Amrita Singh all won Second Awards, with Singh also receiving a Certificate of Achievement and lapel pin from the National Society of Professional Engineers. Sandip Nirmel, also grade 8, received a Family and Friends membership from the Tech Museum of Innovation.
Eighth graders Aditya Dhar and Arjun Subramaniam each won Second Awards in computers/mathematics and Meena Gudapati, grade 7, won a First Award in behavioral/social. In the same category, grade 8 students Joyce Huang, Meilan Steimle and Swetha Tummala all earned Second Awards.
Grade 8 student Andrew Gu’s project in the botany category earned him a First Award, and Evani Radiya-Dixit, grade 8, was named a middle school Top Finalist for her medicine/health/gerontology project.
Congratulations to all the winners, and good luck next year!
Each year Harker holds its Teacher Institute as the school year wraps up and this year, it will be led by Lisa Diffenderfer, Scott Kley Contini and Diane Main, all of the instructional technology department. The event, June 8 this year, features presentations by Harker teachers on a wide variety of classroom techniques. Last year, more than 175 participants came out for the event held on the upper school campus to learn about technology and different methods to improve classroom curricula. Read all about last year’s event!
Watch for updates, and register early to get a spot!
This story was submitted by middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni and upper school Latin teacher Scott Paterson.
Over the weekend of March 16, Harker Junior Classical League (JCL) students headed south to Sage Hill School to attend the JCL State Convention. They enjoyed workshops, fellowship with Latin students from all over the state and competitions involving many aspects of classical knowledge. The students performed admirably, winning many prizes and earning the middle school first place at the middle school level and the upper school second place at the high school level.
Upper school students brought back the following awards in individual categories:
In the HS-2 category (for Latin 2 students):
Jessica Chang, grade 10: first in Roman Daily Life; Serena Wang, grade 10: first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations; Tyler Yeats, grade 12: first in Latin Derivatives; Anthony Luo, grade 9: second in Classical Mythology.
In the HS-3 category (for Latin 3 students):
William Bloomquist, grade 10: first in Catullus Recitation; Elisabeth Siegel, grade 9: first in Academic Pentathlon, second in Classical Mythology, second in Grammar; Sreyas Misra, grade 11: tied for second in Latin Derivatives; Allison Wang, grade 9: tied for third in Academic Pentathlon, third in Classical Mythology, third in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
In the HS-Adv division (for students in Latin 4 and above):
Nik Datuashvili, grade 12: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Reading Comprehension, first in Latin derivatives, second in Latin Vocabulary, third in Latin Sight Reading (Poetry); Kevin Duraiswamy, grade 11: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Catullus Recitation, first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations, second in Grammar; Richard Fan, grade 12: tied for first in Ancient Geography, first in Classical Art, second in Roman Daily Life; Maya Nandakumar, grade 10: first in Dramatic Interpretation (Girls); Erik Andersen, grade 12: tied for second in Latin Derivatives, fourth in Grammar; Sean Fernandes: second in Ancient Geography; Billy Bloomquist (playing up a level): second in Latin Sight Reading (prose); Helena Huang, grade 11: tied for third in Classical Mythology, tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Laura Pedrotti, grade 12: tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Sophia Shatas, grade 10: fourth in Classical Mythology; Eric Zhang, grade 12: third in Ancient Geography.
In the general HS category (including all levels of high school Latin):
Sarika Bajaj, grade 11: first in Photography, third in Multimedia; Andrew Luo, grade 12: first in Chess; Maya Nandakumar: first in Vocal Competition; Sreyas Misra: second in Chess
Middle school students brought back the following awards for group competitions:
William Bloomquist, Rishabh Chandra, grade 9, Kaushik Sankar, grade 9, and Allison Wang: first in HS-3 Competitive Certamen; Elisabeth Siegel (playing up a level), Nik Datuashvili, Kevin Duraiswamy and Richard Fan: second place in HS-Adv Competitive Certamen; second Chariot Race (Girls)
Finally, Elisabeth Siegel won the Individual Academic award for HS-3 by earning the most points overall within her level.
A t the Middle School 1 level (all grade 6):
Robert Bloomquist: first in Latin Vocabulary; Nikhil Dharmaraj: first in Sight Latin Reading, second in Brass/Winds, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Taylor Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Dramatic Interpretation, third in Latin Sight Reading; Arthur Oung: second in Mythology
Middle School 2 (all grade 7 unless otherwise noted):
Justin Au: first in Reading Comp I, first in Dramatic Interpretation, first in Brass/Winds, second in Grammar I, second in Sight Latin Reading, third in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Praveen Batra: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Mythology; Rahul Bhethanabotla: second in Classical Art, fourth in Ancient Geography; Adrian Chu: first in Classical Art, second in Roman History; Derek Kuo: fourth in Classical Art; Michael Kwan: third in Ancient Geography; Nikhil Manglik, grade 8: first in Ancient Geography, second in Academic Pentathlon, fourth in Mythology.
Middle School 3 (all grade 8):
Aditya Dhar: first in Latin Derivatives, first in Mythology, second in Academic Pentathlon, second in Dramatic Interpretation; Alexander Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, second in Reading Comp II, second in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Venkat Sankar: first in Ancient Geography, first in Roman Daily Life, first in Reading Comp II, first in Sight Latin Reading; Arjun Subramaniam: second in Latin Derivatives, second in Mythology, third in Reading Comp II; Arnav Tandon: first in Reading Comp III, second in Grammar II; Austin Tuan: first in Grammar II, first in Academic Pentathlon; Albert Xu: fourth in Mythology; Raymond Xu: first in Classical Art, first in Roman History, fourth in Ancient Geography.
In the chapter competitions, the Certamen (quiz bowl) teams also did well, benefiting from their depth of knowledge and quick thumbs on the buzzers: Middle School 1 placed third (Bobby Bloomquist, Nikhil Dharmaraj, Taylor Lam and Arthur Oung; Allison Cartee, grade 6, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 2 placed third (Justin Au, Praveen Batra, Rahul Bhethanabotla, Adrian Chu and Nikhil Manglik; Justin Su, grade 7, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 3 placed second with an edge-of-the-seat five-point loss to Mirman (Aditya Dhar, Alexander Lam, Venkat Sankar and Arjun Subramaniam).
JCL club members who were unable to attend the convention contributed greatly to Harker’s success in chapter contests. Harker was second place in the banner, T-shirt (designed by Heidi Zhang, grade 6), scrapbook (created by Allison Cartee, grade 6) and spirit contests, and third in the chariot race.
When all the sweepstakes points were added up, Harker middle school students swept the state champion results. The winners of the Individual Academic sweepstakes were Taylor Lam (MS1), Justin Au (MS2) and Venkat Sankar (MS3). All three then went on to win Individual Combined as well.