Four Harker students were recently honored for their stellar performance on the National Latin Exam, sponsored by the American Classical League and Junior Classical League. Recent graduate Richard Gu, rising seniors Allison Wang and Elisabeth Siegel and rising junior Venkat Sankar each received a special book award for earning gold medals on at least four Latin National Exams in the last five years.
The National Latin Exam, administered since 1978, is a 40-question, 45-minute test with seven different proficiency levels, containing questions on topics such as grammar, reading comprehension, mythology and history. Nearly 141,000 students took the exam between February and March of this year.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
The community of researchers that Harker started building with its first research symposium in 2006 showed up in full force for the 10th annual event on April 11.
“We had a record number of student posters, student talks and exhibitors,” said symposium founder and director Anita Chetty, upper school science department chair. “The skills we’re teaching [students] about scientific research, they will take with them for a lifetime even if they don’t end up in a lab.”
Chetty cited the excitement of the teachers, staff, students and parents for expanding and sustaining this annual celebration of discovery and innovation.
This year’s event attracted about 450 to 500 people, including the community-minded Jin family. Shu Jin helped for months as a parent outreach coordinator for the event. His son Andrew, grade 12, presented his first-place work from the nationwide Intel Science Talent Search (STS). Andrew’s sister, Amy, grade 9, is also a researcher and a member of WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), the club that helps organize and run the symposium every year.
Outfitted in white lab coats, members of WiSTEM and the Research Club introduced speakers and hosted the popular STEM Buddies stations, where kids viewed EEG images of their brain waves, rolled marbles onto a blue fabric representing space-time and much more.
In addition to the talks, attendees flocked to interactive booths set up by the exhibitors: DynoSense, Google, IBM, mCube, Nod Labs, NVIDIA, Palo Alto Medical Foundation/ Sutter Health, South Asian Heart Center, Technical Instruments, Tesla, Trek Medics International, Upgrademe and Verizon, plus student startup Sail Research, and the Infinities and Subatomic Smarticles robotics teams.
As the symposium has grown over the years, so has the stature of research done by Harker students. Including Jin, 15 Harker students were named Intel STS semifinalists and three were finalists. In the most recent Siemens Competition, 13 students were California semifinalists and four of them regional finalists.
“Getting the opportunity to see all the incredible projects that the kids have done is really phenomenal,” said Harker alumna and keynote speaker Shabnam Aggarwal ’03, who graduated before the event existed.
Senior Steven Wang, one of 24 student speakers and one of the three Intel STS finalists, used computer methods to find a new gene associated with colorectal cancer and then tested the mutations in microscopic mini-organs in a Stanford University lab.
“I got to be on the forefront of organoid research and run my own experiment,” he said. “The lab niche was very fun. We ate lunch together and watched movies.”
Siemens regional semifinalist Ankita Pannu, grade 12, tackled the lack of organization in online cancer support group discussions.
“My main engineering goal was to help patients gather information,” said Pannu, who developed an algorithm to summarize and categorize information from posts. With no prior background in text mining, she asked for an informal internship at IBM’s research lab where a mentor pointed her in the right direction.
Throughout the daylong symposium, middle and upper school students displayed their endeavors on more than 50 posters in categories including engineering, nanoscience, microbiology, environmental science, bioinformatics and behavioral science.
Amy Dunphy, grade 9, purified the allergen in poison oak and worked on polymerizing it into a bigger chain of molecules to prevent transmission through the skin. She contracted the rash a few times in the name of science, but nodded yes without hesitation when keynote presenter James McClintock asked if she wanted to be a scientist.
McClintock is the endowed university professor of polar and marine biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“Antarctica is one of the richest marine environments on the planet,” he said, but rapid warming from climate change is altering the local weather and conditions that populations have depended on for millennia.
As the annual sea ice disappears, so do krill. Adélie penguins are declining as unseasonably late snow melts and floods their eggs. Sub-Antarctic gentoo and chinstrap penguins have moved in, as have king crabs. Antarctic marine life has no defenses against crushing claws.
“Communities always change, but over a few decades this is a profound change,” he said.
One of the repercussions could be the loss of medicinal chemicals; recent discoveries from Antarctic life include compounds active against cancer and H1N1 flu.
In the afternoon, father-son duo Suhas and DJ Patil had a “fireside” chat in wingback chairs in the auditorium, sharing their outlooks on education and entrepreneurialism.
Suhas, a former Harker parent (daughter Teja graduated in 2002), is the founder and retired chairman of Cirrus Logic, a semiconductor company. He’s seen in his son an example of where Silicon Valley is headed: “Our young people will need to get trained or they must train themselves to be very agile with respect to what they work on.”
DJ is the first chief data scientist at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and co-coined the term “data scientist.”
“Stick to your convictions,” he advised, “but listen to people and outside views to course correct.”
In a special session, John Wolpert, IBM’s Watson evangelist, discussed the new era of cognitive computing led by systems like Watson that can learn from context and see patterns in fragmented, unstructured data.
“It’s about extending the human capability,” he said, encouraging students to try solving problems with newly available Watson subsystems.
Watson algorithms have found new targets for cancer research and developed unique recipes praised by top chefs.
The second keynote speaker, David Mortlock, son of upper school statistics teacher Mary Mortlock, works at the White House as director for international economic affairs for the National Security Council.
Both in responding to the recent Ebola outbreak and pressuring Iran through sanctions to return to nuclear negotiations, the U.S. government “really relied on research and development … to try and make the world a slightly more prosperous and safer place,” he said.
Having your proposals embraced by the president is thrilling, he said. “It takes guts to say, ‘I have an idea and people should listen to me.’ It’s really exciting to see [Harker students] doing the same thing here with your work and presentations.”
Harker Alumni Researchers Share Latest Updates
From introducing underrepresented minorities to mathematical problem-solving techniques to undertaking lab work focused on better understanding the Ebola virus in West Africa, Harker alumni researchers are involved in numerous incredible projects. Read on for the latest updates.
Yi Sun ’06 Intel finalist, Second Place National
Yin Sun ’06 is currently a fourth year Ph.D. student in the mathematics department at MIT. “My research is in representation theory, a branch of mathematics which gives a precise algebraic understanding of the symmetries of a system. I am particularly interested in connections between these algebraic techniques and recent applications to statistical mechanics and high-dimensional statistics,” he said.
Recently, Sun also has been collaborating with fellow Harker alumnus Tatsunori Hashimoto ’07 on a project in machine learning. Outside of research, for the last eight years he has been involved in teaching high school students at the Math Olympiad Summer Program. “This year, I’m helping organize MathROOTS, a new summer program at MIT (mathroots.mit.edu), to introduce underrepresented minorities to mathematical problem-solving techniques,” he added.
Frank Wang ’08 Intel semifinalist
Frank Wang ’08 reports that he is currently a Ph.D. student in computer science at MIT, working on computer security.
Aaron Lin ’09 JSHS regional finalist
Aaron Lin ’09 lives in Boston. He attended Harker’s middle and upper schools. “Though I didn’t qualify for Siemens or Intel, I learned a lot about research while at Harker and had a blast at the local Santa Clara science fair, the California state science fair and the JSHS [Junior Science and Humanities Symposia]. Since then, I’ve continued research. The summer after graduation, and again a second summer during college, I performed research in Mark Davis’ immunology lab at Stanford and co-authored a research paper there, which appeared in the Journal of Immunology in 2011,” he said.
At Princeton, he joined the virology and proteomics lab of Ileana Cristea during his sophomore year. “By graduation in 2013, I wrote a thesis and a first author research paper, which appeared in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics in 2013, and another co-authored paper, which appeared in Proteomics this year,” he recalled.
After college, Lin was accepted into the Ph.D. program in virology at Harvard, and is currently in his second year there. In December, he passed his preliminary qualifying exams and officially became a Ph.D. candidate. After rotating through a couple labs, he joined the lab of Pardis Sabeti in March 2014.
“Interestingly, I actually met [Harker senior and national Intel Science Talent Search winner] Andrew Jin, who joined the lab for a summer research project. Though our expertise and research interests didn’t overlap much, I was blown away by his end-of-the-summer lab meeting presentation, and it’s pretty clear to everyone that Andrew will continue to succeed in the future. It’s been productive for me as well, as I have co-authored one research paper in mBio in 2015, have another co-authored manuscript in Cell under review and another co-authored manuscript in preparation,” he noted.
At the moment, Lin’s work focuses on understanding the genomic variation among Ebola virus isolates in the current West African outbreak. His lab is a leader in the field of high-throughput, deep sequencing of inactivated genomes from BSL-4 viruses such as Ebola and Lassa virus, and is now using this data about viral variation to learn about viral transmission, improve field diagnostics, and inform vaccine and therapeutic strategies.
“It’s great to hear the amazing news about Andrew, and the rest of the other Intel and Siemens winners as well! The growth in the research program at Harker has been outstanding, and I’m sure that the current students are paving the way for themselves, and will continue to do so into the future,” said Lin.
Vishesh Jain ’10 Intel semifinalist
“It was exciting to hear about Andrew’s achievement, as well as those of all the student researchers at Harker over the past five years,” said Vishesh Jain ’10. Jain reported that he is excited to start medical school this fall. “During my gap year, I am doing cardiovascular research and volunteering at Stanford, and I am working at the biomedical nanotech startup Bikanta,” he added.
For Shabnam Aggarwal ’03 Failure was a Means to Success and Happiness
Thanks to serendipity, hard work, passion – and most of all, failure – Shabnam Aggarwal ’03 is the happy CEO of the education technology company she started in India.
The alumna keynote speaker for the 10th annual Harker Research Symposium, Aggarwal assured parents and students that “failure is not a four-letter word. Failure is inevitable and failure is necessary.” It teaches resilience.
She experienced a rough academic patch in high school, but got into Carnegie Mellon and earned an electrical and computer engineering degree. Then she shocked her parents by quitting her high-paying job at Merrill Lynch on Wall Street to teach English in Cambodia to girls who had escaped the sex trade. In pursuing her passion for equality in education, she later had “six hard years in India,” trying everything from teaching preschool to designing cell phone games.
“I failed many, many, many times before arriving at this solution,” said about her Delhi-based business KleverKid, which works to bring the best teachers, coaches and tutors to the kids who need them most.
She asked parents in the audience to imagine sitting in the back of a canoe, letting their kids paddle even if they aren’t steering the way you’d advise.
“Often they’re going to make the wrong decision, but what’s imperative for them to master is picking up again and doing it over and over until they succeed.”
Both of Aggarwal’s parents were in the auditorium, and she shared the stage with her dad for a few minutes. “Through all these zigs and zags she’s gone through, she’s never given up,” Avnish Aggarwal said. “The investors saw her passion and persistence.”
She returned the compliment. “There would be one less person in the world trying to make a difference if my parents and teachers had never given me the space to fail,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima in an effort to end World War II. The bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” directly killed more than 80,000 people, including 330 students and teachers at Hiroshima Jogakuin Senior High School.
The attack, which destroyed nearly 70 percent of the buildings in the city, went on to take the lives of more than 140,000 people through radiation poisoning and injuries. The controversy over the death toll from the Hiroshima and (a few days later) Nagasaki nuclear bombings versus that of the alternative – a physical invasion of the Japanese home islands – continues, but few will argue that nuclear war is acceptable in any form, under any circumstances, today.
On the 70th anniversary of the bombing, the rebuilt Hiroshima Jogakuin Senior High School welcomed students from Russia, Japan and the United States for the 18th annual Critical Issues Forum, a student conference on nuclear disarmament. It was the first time that the conference was held in Hiroshima, the first city to experience nuclear devastation.
This year’s Critical Issues Forum, held April 2-4, focused on the humanitarian approach to nuclear disarmament. It was co-sponsored by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and the Hiroshima for Global Peace Plan Joint Project Executive Committee. Students presented their research, listened to talks by survivors and visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
The conference also marked The Harker School’s first year of participation.
“I’ve always been interested in global policy issues,” said Manan Shah, grade 10. “Having debated a great deal about nuclear weapons and their potential violent effects not only on tight-knit human communities but also the world at large, I found the Critical Issues Forum a unique opportunity to promote real change.”
Shah was part of the Harker team of f our students who researched, wrote and presented their findings on using past events with global humanitarian consequences to determine prior successful initiatives. The team comprised Shah, Ethan Ma, grade 12, Alexander Sikand, grade 11, and Zarek Drozda, grade 11. Two of the students, Sikand and Ma, went to Japan to present the team’s findings.
“In spite of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of use of nuclear weapons, the issues of national security, military and strategic aspects have always taken precedence in the discussion of nuclear weapons,” Shah said. “The research for this year’s topic centered on discussion about the implications of potential human catastrophe as a result of the use of nuclear weapons and what must be done to avoid any such future occurrence.”
Harker held an assembly to announce the partnership with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies back in October 2014, at which three representatives talked to students about the conference, their past experiences and the importance of this work.
Ma was in that audience during the discussion and was inspired to participate.
“I think the topic itself is something that’s specific and one that students usually don’t get to study in great detail,” Ma said. “I found it interesting and a bit mysterious.”
The team of students spent about three months doing basic research on the topic of nuclear nonproliferation under physics teacher Eric Nelson’s guidance.
After completing the research, the idea that generated the most enthusiasm from the team involved researching past events with global humanitarian consequences (including abolishment of slavery, prohibition of land mines, ban of chemical weapons, and reduction in the use of ozone-depleting CFCs) to determine prior successful initiatives, Shah said.
After deciding to move forward with the topic, the team broke the work into subtopics; each student studied a subtopic, and then the team worked together to write a collaborative paper and presentation.
“During the research for this forum, we increased our understanding of the importance of nuclear disarmament, the current status of nuclear disarmament, and the issues and challenges in the disarmament initiatives,” Shah said. “I strongly believe that educating young high school students around the world on disarmament and nonproliferation issues will have a significant impact towards a world free of nuclear weapons, and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this program.”
Lessons from Hiroshima
After completing the research paper, Sikand and Ma made their way to Hiroshima for the conference, a trip that would inspire in them an abiding compassion for those who have been directly impacted by nuclear weapons.
“I thought it was really shocking,” Sikand said. “I mean, you read about the nuclear bomb and you read about its usage in the text books and you know that it’s this devastating event that took thousands of lives, but when you’re there in the museum and try to fathom how it must have felt and looked … no one who wasn’t there will fully understand, but we did our best.”
The team learned that “Little Boy,” the 15-kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was indeed small compared with the Soviet Union’s Tsar Bomba of 1961 – the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated at 50 megatons.
“Even looking at this massive destructive event [Hiroshima]… one of the professors there described [the destruction] as looking [like] at gunshot wounds from the 1860s,” Sikand said, while the destructive capabilities of today’s nuclear weapons parallel the damage done to individuals by modern battlefield weapons. “The bomb used in Hiroshima was a lot different from the capabilities that we have today,” Sikand noted.
Prior to traveling to Hiroshima, Sikand studied the use of the atomic bomb in Japan under then-President Harry Truman.
“We basically tried to justify the use and talked about how it probably saved this many American lives; it ended the war this many years, this many months earlier than it would have otherwise,” he said. “We debate it, but after going there, you realize that there is much left [to debate]. Think about the devastation to the immediate victims of the bomb – those who were completely incinerated, those who died of radiation poisoning days, weeks, months after; increased prevalence of cancer and even now, descendants of survivors have been marginalized by Japanese society because no one wants to marry them because of fear of birth defects.”
Although Shah did not join his classmates in Japan, the work he did alongside them while they prepared a college-level paper to present in Hiroshima allowed him to develop strong bonds with them and a desire to do more on the subject. “If one is looking for an opportunity to make a real difference in nuclear proliferation issues, participation in the Critical Issues Forum is a game changer,” Shah said. “The issue of use of nuclear weapons affects each and every one of us and our participation will ensure a better, safer and more peaceful tomorrow.”
While in Japan, Ma and Sikand visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which has exhibits depicting the city before and after the bombing. Established in 1954, the museum works to abolish nuclear weapons and bring about lasting world peace.
“Being able to be in the same place that you know such great calamity has happened and after that, listening to the survivor stories, visiting the atomic bomb museum – that all just kind of cements it,” Ma said. “It left a deep impression.”
Ma said that this experience, and the knowledge and perspective it gave him, has shown him the importance of what those who are involved in the work to end the use of nuclear weapons are doing. “It will always be a part of me,” he said.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
It comes as no surprise that the business and entrepreneurship and DECA programs have garnered kudos galore for individual and team efforts this year. Here are the final achievements of the school year.
TEDxHarkerSchool 2015 – March 21
TEDxHarkerSchool, which this year drew more than 100 attendees, is one of the TEDx events held around the globe led solely by students for students. TEDxHarkerSchool operates in the spirit of TED by focusing on “Ideas Worth Spreading.” To the TEDxHarkerSchool team, it is just as critical to get these ideas out to youth as to adults.
In addition to inspirational adult speakers, one student each year takes the TEDxHarkerSchool stage to share what inspires them. TEDxHarkerSchool also hosts a mentorship luncheon, which gives attendees the opportunity to network with dozens of professionals in the technology, entertainment and design fields, among others.
TEDxHarkerSchool 2015 featured five speakers: Ajay Shah, founder and manager of Technology Solutions Business of Solectron and former CEO of Smart Modular Technologies; Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo; Deborah Perry Piscione, author of “Secrets of Silicon Valley”; David Gross, partner at Faegre Baker Daniels law firm; and Harker student Samantha Madala, grade 12, founder of Healthy Scholars, which raises awareness of education-stunting health issues.
In addition, there were five exhibitors: Toms Shoes, NAACP, Arista Networks, Acton (RocketSkates) and Songabby.
DECA Faculty and Staff Appreciation Get-Together
Harker’s DECA chapter hosted a faculty and staff appreciation party in April with desserts and coffee to thank those who make sure students have the wherewithal to attend DECA events. Eric Kallbrier, assistant to the B.E. director, was named “Staff of the Year.”
Mentorship Banquet
CareerConnect hosted its second- annual mentorship banquet in April, an opening event for the mentorship program in which Harker students are paired with industry professionals. For example, students interested in business are paired with executives from Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the like.
International Career Development Conference
In late April, 28 students from Harker’s DECA chapter traveled to the International Career Development Conference in Orlando, Fla. During four event-filled days, the 18 students who qualified at California’s State Career Development Conference competed, while the remaining students attended the Emerging Leader Series. Of 10 Harker teams competing, four placed in the top 20 and qualified for the final round of competition. Students attended leadership seminars, a run/walk event and networked with other DECA members from around the world.
At the Grand Awards Session, Harker students were called up on stage to recognize their top 10 finish in The Stock Market Game and as national Finish Line Challenge winners. Full details on this conference, The Stock Market Game and Finish Line Challenge winners are available at news.harker.org; just search on DECA.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
By Jenny Alme and Greg Achten
Speech and debate participants reap many benefits, including enhanced critical-thinking, high-level research skills and many more, but one often overlooked benefit is the growth of students’ leadership skills.
Students who participate in middle and upper school speech and debate (also called forensics) competitions not only learn teamwork skills and the value of hard work, many of those students also take on impressive leadership roles that prepare them for success long after they leave Harker.
On any team, whether athletic or academic, there are always team leaders, and the speech and debate team is no exception. Many older, more experienced students serve as team captains or mentors for the younger students and in so doing learn important leadership skills. These students are tasked with organizing research assignments, judging novice debates and generally assisting the coaches both at tournaments and at school in team preparation and management.
Leadership on the Team
Experienced speech and debate team members often note they were grateful for the help they received from varsity team members and are eager to give back. They can also gain valuable skills from mentoring. Nitya Mani, grade 12, a captain from the 2014-15 team, said teaching was one of the best ways to learn. The mentors have to learn how to explain concepts clearly and relate to younger students.
Thinking about how to teach a concept gives the mentor a deeper understanding. In the process, they also are practicing the audience adaptation and argumentation skills that will help them be successful at competitions.
“Through leading our team’s research efforts, working with novices and middle schoolers, and helping the rest of the team improve, debate has allowed me to hone my leadership skills,” said Ayush Midha, grade 12, also a captain and winner of the 2014-15 O’Neill Leadership Trophy, an annual award given to a single student who best represents the attributes a national committee of coaches desires in a student role model.
“As a captain,” he added, “I have had the opportunity to foster team success and lead my teammates by example. Even outside of debate, these skills have allowed me to take on leadership positions and experience success.”
The coaches enjoy watching the older students grow into these roles. Seeing a nervous and inexperienced sixth grader evolve into a confident varsity team leader is deeply gratifying.
“The middle school team is extremely lucky to have our experienced upper school debaters come to the middle school and act as coaches, judges and great role models,” said Karina Momary, head coach of the middle school program.
“It is fantastic to see students who started participating in speech and debate in middle school come back as juniors and seniors to be student coaches. They not only are able to help the middle school students but also themselves grow through teaching their younger teammates.”
Leadership in the Harker Community
Team members also often speak of the skills that the speech and debate program contributed to other aspects of life at Harker. Whether they are writing a research paper, presenting science research or speaking in class, debate coaches often hear that students attribute some of their success to speech and debate.
Megan Huynh, grade 9, noted that speech and debate helped her to run for student council because she felt that she could confidently deliver her campaign speech.
Less tangibly, students also learn to accept constructive criticism and bounce back after failures. Team member will all say that competitions are not easy and that before winning major trophies, they had to lose lots of rounds and be critiqued by judges from every angle. Learning to absorb these comments and turn them into better performances can help a student learn to run for office again after losing an election, work harder on a project after receiving a low grade or try something new.
“Debate has really taught me that failure is not the end of the world and that when you fail, you just have to shake it off and move on,” said Panny Shan, grade 11. “Last year, I was devastated every time I lost a debate round, but this year I’ve learned to focus on what I learned from a debate instead of the win or loss.”
Leadership After Harker
While the skills and lessons certainly help them win competitions and do well in school, speech and debate team skills also serve students long after they have graduated. Many alumni attest that their participation in middle and upper school forensics was a formative experience that helped shape their collegiate and professional careers.
“Debate requires you to work closely with a team of peers in high-pressure situations and be fully committed to the success of the team,” said Roshni Bhatnagar ’11, a rising medical school student at Northwestern University. “There’s no better way to practice effective leadership and teamwork skills.” Other alumni note the critical impact speech and debate had on their already- remarkable careers.
“Debate was perhaps the most valuable aspect of my formal education,” said Alex Iftimie ’03, now counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security at the U.S. Department of Justice. “Leaving aside the oft-cited points that debate teaches critical- thinking and communication skills, debate taught me to be a competitor – to have the drive and determination to succeed – and instilled a confidence that I could reason my way through any legal or policy issue.”
Ziad Jawadi ’11 just graduated from Georgetown University and is about to start his consulting career at Bain & Co. in Dubai. “Debate was, by far, the activity that most prepared me for collegiate and career success,” he noted. “In college, I excelled at writing and analytical thinking early on due to the preparation debate offered, as many of the skills directly mirrored what I had to do for class.
“When I began recruiting for consulting, many of the skills that Bain was looking for in students were the exact skills that debate trains for: research, analytical thinking, writing, public speaking, and the ability to effectively communicate complex public policy and economic concepts into lay terms.”
Helping Build Future Leaders
While the Harker speech and debate team is certainly successful year in and year out and brings great acclaim – along with lots of trophies – to the school, perhaps its greatest accomplishment is the lifelong skill set it imparts on students. As the testimonials of current and former debaters demonstrate, Harker’s forensics program plays a vital role in helping students prepare to be effective leaders.
“Speech and debate has helped me in a lot of different ways,” said Frank Wang ’08, a doctoral candidate at MIT in computer science. “Most of the research I do requires positioning my research in a way that’s attractive to reviewers. Many Ph.D. students spend the first two years trying to learn that, but I had a head start on that. Speech and debate has made me a better researcher and a better leader.”
Reddy Declared National Champ for Second Year!
For the second year in a row, Pranav Reddy, grade 12, was named the national Lincoln-Douglas Debate Champion. The tournament, hosted by the National Debate Coaches Association (NDCA), was held in Las Vegas April 11-13.
Reddy’s winning debate was on the topic of minimum wage and whether it should be substantially increased. The senior successfully affirmed the proposal.
In 2013-14 Reddy became the first Harker Lincoln-Douglas debater to win the prestigious NDCA National Championships. Reddy built on this success his senior year, being named the top speaker at five of the first six tournaments he attended and winning the Glenbrooks tournament in November, the largest tournament of the fall semester.
Reddy entered the 2014-15 debate season as the No. 1-ranked Lincoln-Douglas debater in the nation and won two national titles in April – the NDCA National Championships and the Tournament of Champions. Reddy also won the Harvard-Westlake tournament in January and entered the championship season as the only student to win two majors in the regular season. He is the first student ever to win the NDCA National Championships twice. Reddy is also only the second student in the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate to win the NDCA National Championships and the Tournament of Champions in the same year.
“His achievements are truly historic,” said Greg Achten, Harker’s Lincoln-Douglas team coach. “Winning one national championship tournament takes hard work, incredible intellectual range and exceptional speaking skills. To win three national titles over the course of two years is simply an unheard of accomplishment. In the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate, no student from any school has ever achieved this level of success.” For the full story on the debate teams tremendous season go to news.harker.org and search on “debate.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
About 70 guests attended Larry Lansburgh’s talk, “Into the Amazon: How One Presentation Changed My Life,” in early April in the Nichols Hall auditorium on the upper school campus. The event was co-sponsored by the Harker Speaker Series, the middle and upper school debate departments, and the business and entrepreneurship department.
Lansburgh, an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning documentarian and author of “The Simple Key to Great Presentations,” told how he ended up in the Amazon.
“It was a presentation – just several people speaking to us in the audience – that led me to a life-and-death struggle in the Amazon rain forest,” he said, noting how the power of a presentation can literally change lives.
Lansburgh received an Emmy for “The Hidden Struggle,” a one-hour PBS documentary on the inspiring achievements of developmentally disabled young adults, and an Academy Award nomination for “Dawn Flight,” a dramatic short, and has also produced documentaries on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and Hawaii.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
Upper School: Spectacular Sports Season, Achievements Run the Gamut
What a spring for Harker athletics! Golf won a league season and saw one of its athletes ascend to the state tournament. A swimmer broke a school record at CCS and won an individual championship. Track and field’s coach became the first in Eagles history to win the Honor Coach award. And the boys tennis squad made it further in the finals than it has in four years. It was a spectacular season of achievement.
Track and Field
It was another great season for the team, including many school records, personal records and first place finishes. Coach Scott Chisam became the first coach in Harker history to receive the CCS Honor Coach award, and both the boys and girls teams received recognition as CCS scholastic championship teams! At the league finals, freshmen Grace Koonmen, Gloria Guo and Aria Coalson and sophomore Davis Dunaway had big wins. Sophomore sensation Niki Iyer advanced to CCS and then, in the most important race of her career so far, blazed an incredible last lap in the 3,200-meter run to slide into third place at the CCS finals and qualify for the CIF State Track & Field Champion- ships. She went on to finish 17th at the State Track & Field Championships in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 10:48.60. She was the top underclass- man in the field; all those ahead of her were either juniors or seniors. Congratulations to Iyer on an outstanding track season and for representing Harker so championship and saw well at the state meet! Go, Eagles!
Golf
Harker won its league championship, then finished seventh overall in CCS, firmly ensconcing the team among the section’s elite. At CCS, senior Shrish Dwivedi finished just one shot off the lead and qualified for the NorCal Championships, where he shot a one-under-par and advanced to the state tournament. See the box on this page for more on Dwivedi’s great season finish.
Swimming
After the Eagles came in fourth in the league championships, freshman Vivian Wang broke a school record at CCS in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 freestyle en route to winning Harker’s fourth ever CCS individual championship. Wang went on to place eighth in the state championship in the 200 individual medley and 16th in the 100 freestyle. Harker sent a number of swimmers and divers to CCS, including freshman Taylor Kohlmann, sophomores Michael Auld, Jack Farnham and Justin Culpepper, juniors Grace Guan, Angela Huang, Karen Tu and Sandhana Kannan, and seniors Aaron Huang, Craig Neubieser, Stacey Chao, Delaney Martin and Jackelyn Shen.
Tennis
For the first time since 2011 and for just the second time ever, the boys tennis team returned to the CCS quarterfinals after an upset victory over eighth seed Westmont on their courts. Congratulations to the boys on an amazing season!
Softball
The girls finished at .500 overall, going 9-9 while winning four of 10 league games. Freshman Kristin LeBlanc led the team in hitting, finishing with a .370 bat- ting average, .444 on-base percentage and .462 slugging percentage. Sophomore Marti Sutton also had a tremendous year at the plate, with a .314/.429/.392 line while leading the team with 16 RBIs. Overall, five Eagles finished with better than .400 on-base percentages through 12 or more games, including LeBlanc, Sutton, junior Alisa Wakita, senior Sarah Bean and sophomore Grace Park. Wakita also had a home run on the season and, on the basepaths, she and LeBlanc each swiped a team-high four bases. LeBlanc and junior Marita Del Alto pitched for Harker this year. LeBlanc finished 2-1 with a 1.33 ERA in four starts, while Del Alto finished 6-8 with a 5.86 ERA in 14 starts, including a complete game and a save in another appearance.
Baseball
The sluggers let their offense do the talking this year, hitting their way to an amazing .298 batting average and .402 on-base percentage, including six home runs, en route to finishing 9-14 overall and 5-10 in league. Freshman Nate Kelly led the team with a .405 batting average, .506 on-base percentage and .675 slugging percentage. Kelly and junior Miles DeWitt each hit two home runs. DeWitt, for his part, finished with a .370 batting average, .448 on-base percentage and .589 slugging percentage. Freshman Dominic Cea led the team in RBIs with 26, to finish up with a .368/.432/.394 line.
Lacrosse
The Eagles finished 7-13 overall and 5-7 in league. The team averaged nine goals per game, led by senior Hannah Bollar, who had 57 goals, 69 points and an average of three goals per game.
Volleyball
The boys ended with a 10-19 overall record and a 2-10 record in league. Senior Shiki Dixit led the team with a 42.5 kill percentage, while sophomore Andrew Gu led the team with 184 kills, and senior Jeremiah Anderson led the team with an average of three kills per set. Senior Matthew Ho led the team with 52 aces, averaging 0.6 aces per set.
Graduating Athletes Join Collegiate Sports Teams
Heartiest congratulations to 12 graduates who have committed to playing their sports in college! “These are all outstanding student athletes,” said Dan Molin, upper school athletic director. “This group of seniors has represented Harker exceptionally well over the years, and we want to thank them and wish them well as they represent their new schools.”
Jeremiah Anderson (Westmont College, soccer), Aadyot Bhatnagar (California Institute of Technology, water polo), Billy Bloomquist (California Institute of Technology, water polo), Shreya Dixit (Yale University, volleyball), Shrish Dwivedi (Duke University, golf), Keanu Forbes (San Jose City College, football), Aaron Huang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
swimming), Eric Holt (Oberlin College, basketball), Sid Krishnamurthi (Stanford University, football), Craig Neubieser (Tufts University, swimming), Erika Olsen (Southern Methodist University, cheer) and Christian Williams (University of Redlands, football).
Soar to new heights, Harker Eagles!
Golfer Shines at State Finals
by William Cracraft
Harker’s Shrish Dwivedi, grade 12, finished his season tied for second – missing first place by one stroke – at the California Interscholastic Federation state golf championships.
Dwivedi is the first Harker male golfer ever to qualify for the state tournament. “He is truly playing at an elite level,” said Dan Molin, upper school athletic director.
“Since his freshman year, Shrish has always been a true student of the game, studying all aspects,” said Ie-Chen, Harker’s golf coach. “His attention to detail, from his preparation leading up to match day, and his on-course management are what separates him from others. He studies the course meticulously, then goes and practices the shots he needs to succeed.” Read the full story in news.harker.org; search on Dwivedi or use this shortlink: https://staging.news.harker.org/?p=26025.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
Senior Parents Honored at Annual Luncheon
The Senior Moms and Dads Luncheon is a special Harker tradition, now in its 15th year. During the event, grade 9-11 parents honor senior parents with a potluck lunch to mark the occasion of their children graduating from Harker.
Parents of juniors also are invited to sit down with the senior parents, as they are welcomed to their child’s last year at Harker. This year, the parent planning committee worked hard to create an enjoyable luncheon, which was held May 18 at the upper school campus’ gym and quad.
The memorable day included meaningful speeches, elegantly set tables, beautiful photo collages and delicious food. One of the most heartwarming moments was when senior parents shared thoughts about their time as part of the Harker community.
“The grade 9-11 parents really have a fun time planning the whole event, from décor, making the invitations, to centerpieces and a special gift for the senior parents,” said Jennifer Hargreaves, director of middle and upper school volunteer programs. “For the gift this year, parents coordinated a letter from the seniors to their parents, which was included in an embossed photo folder with their child’s senior photo.”
She added that it’s heartwarming to see many underclassmen parents support this event to honor the school’s senior parents. “Senior parents seemed to have a great time at the first event of graduation week while their children were on the senior trip,” she added.
From K to Life! Harker Lifers Unite at Dinner with Head of School
On the evening of May 21, immediately following their baccalaureate ceremony, graduating seniors who have attended Harker since kindergarten (known as “lifers”) boarded a bus and headed for a special dinner at the home of Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
They reflected upon their lives as Harker students by looking at their Harker application photos, enjoyed a cake emblazoned with these photos, and even took photos with their original kindergarten advisory groups.
This year’s lifers are: Alyssa Amick, Jeremiah Anderson, Tiara Bhatacharya, Jeremy Binkley, Vamsi Gadiraju, Corey Gonzales, Matthew Ho, Caroline Howells, Srivinay Irrinki, Sidhart Krishnamurthi, Madeline Lang-Ree, Delaney Martin, Maya Nandakumar, Craig Neubieser, Sindhu Ravuri, Eric Roxlo, Neil Sadhu, Katy Sanchez, Sophia Shatas, Sheridan Tobin, Nephele Troullinos, Jacqui Villarreal, Gillian Wallin, Julia Wang, Zoë Woehrmann, Eric Yu and Andrew Zhang.
Senior Brick Tangible Reminder of Those Who’ve Walked the Path
About 200 people, including students, parents and alumni, gathered on the upper school plaza May 21 to celebrate and place bricks in the Alumni Walk. Each year, parents can commemorate their child’s graduation by purchasing a brick inscribed with his or her name and grad year.
This year Rob and Tamra Amick were placing their second brick, out of a possible three. Son Rob graduated in 2013, daughter Alyssa was getting her brick at the event, and daughter Julia, a rising freshman, was there in what was probably a rehearsal for her own brick installation in four years. Amick noted the bricks have a dual purpose – honoring the student and contributing to the school, “and this is one of the benefits of making a contribution.”
Ashok Krishnamurthi and Deepa Iyengar were also celebrating their second brick. The first was placed in 2011 with son Guatam’s name on it; this year son Sidhart’s brick was installed. Krishnamurthi said he buys the bricks for a number of reasons. “One is to remember,” he said. “The school has been fantastic for us – 19 years! Our older boy’s brick is right there and this is a way to give back to the school. I think it is really important that parents give back. It’s not about the value of the brick, it is about the appreciation.”
The bricks are laid in a winding walk through Graduates’ Grove, past a babbling brook/ fountain and among towering redwood trees, a tangible reminder of those who’ve come before.
Krishnamurthi noted he sometimes visits the walkway and his older son’s brick when on campus. “It brings a little pang – a good feeling, a very good feeling.”
Upper School Students Stage Goodbye Assembly for Class of 2015
In mid-May, the upper school student body convened in the gym to bid a fond farewell to the Class of 2015.
Sarah Bean, outgoing ASB president, kicked off the fun event with a brief introduction, which was followed by lively entertainment and moving video testimonials by performing arts, debate, student council and athletics.
The Harker Jazz Band, Downbeat and Varsity Dance Troupe performed.
The gathering, organized by economics teacher Samuel Lepler, provided an opportunity to recognize the year’s stand-out seniors and introduce the students who will serve on the Student Council for the upcoming school year.
At the end of the event, students and faculty congregated in the middle of the gym, where many seniors expressed their gratitude and shared what the teachers meant to them. “Several students and teachers were in tears, and it was incredibly meaningful for so much of the community. It was the final time with all the faculty and seniors in one place and it was the final performance for many of the performing arts groups. There were touching send-offs from each of the programs which, overall, incorporated virtually every senior,” recalled Lepler.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
Generous endowments to Harker have made a significant impact in 30 students’ lives over the last five years and, starting this fall, faculty members also will benefit from a Harker family’s generosity.
Harker has two student endowments: the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, established in 2009, and the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities, established in 2011.
As the funds have matured, more students have been granted funds for research; this past year a record nine seniors were selected as beneficiaries. Now, a new endowment established by Raju and Balu Vegesna (Ramanand and Srivani, both grade 7) allows teachers to apply for special opportunities to expand their professional skills and knowledge.
The inaugural recipients of the Raju & Balu Vegesna Foundation for Teacher Excellence are Ruth Meyer (upper school humanities/history), Susan Nace (upper school performing arts) and Roxana Pianko (upper school humanities/history).
The 2015-16 student scholars, all rising seniors, are:
John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund: Zarek Drozda, Shannon Hong, Jasmine Liu, Sadhika Malladi and Sahana Narayanan.
Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities: Kaitlyn Gee, Kavya Ramakrishnan, Elisabeth Siegel and Natalie Simonian.
The 2014-15 Near/Mitra scholar papers are on file in the Harker library archive: http://library.harker.org/upperlibrary/nearmitra.
A summary of the 2014-15 papers can be found at Harker News: http://news. harker.org/?p=25923; search on “Endowment” at news.harker.org to find summaries of previous papers.
2014-15 John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund Scholars and Paper Titles
Ayush Midha – “Blackout: The Case for Black Power in 1960s Liberation Politics”
Apoorva Rangan – “The Tet Offensive and the MACV’s Information Defensive: An Analysis of Limitations to Watchdog Journalism in the Vietnam War (1964-68)”
Felix Wu – “Straight Outta Compton: Hip- Hop and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots”
Karnika Pombra – “The United Fruition: A Historical Analysis of the Motives for the 1954 U.S.-Backed Guatemalan Coup”
Vedant Thyagaraj – “Increasing the Efficiency of United States Healthcare: Addressing Adverse Selection in the Health Insurance Market Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”
2014-15 Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities Scholars and Paper Titles
Aadyot Bhatnagar – “Using Antimalarial and Insecticide Resistance to Contextualize the Future of Malaria Control in Tanzania”
Maya Nandakumar – “The Enchantment of the Habit”
Agata Sorotokin – “The Truth Beyond Words: A Muisco-Historical Analysis of Selections from Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shotakovich’s Compositions Under the Stalinist Regime”
Stanley Xie – “Understanding Gender Differences in Depression: The Evolution in Our Understanding for Rumination and Co-Rumination in the Midst of the Social Media Revolution”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
As a parting gesture, this year’s graduating class dedicated its senior gift toward helping to finance an extension to the Shah patio area. Through class fundraising and their senior donations, the students rallied together to raise more than $6,500 for the project.
“Every year the graduating class leaves behind a senior gift. The idea of this year’s gift is to enable Shah patio to serve as an expanded recreation setting for seniors, as well as allow students travelling to Shah by way of Davis Field to take a shorter route,” explained Joe Rosenthal, Harker’s executive director of advancement.
At the beginning of this school year, the senior class lost access to the Sledge, a former senior-only lounge that was converted into the faculty dining room and a meeting space for students in the DECA program. The new patio will allow Shah Hall to serve as an informal gathering spot for future seniors.
Plans are in the works to have an on- site patio with tables and an awning to provide shade, surrounded by planter boxes. There is also discussion of including benches with motivational phrases that reflect Harker values, like “kindness, patience and respect.”
Last year, the senior class gift went toward honoring beloved former faculty member Jason Berry by creating an orchard in his memory. The Berry Orchard is now located in the space between Dobbins and Nichols halls.