Class Notes: 1992 – present (The Harker School)

2006

Amira Valliani recently wrapped up her duties as senior adviser to the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications at the White House, where she worked on a range of foreign policy, press and public diplomacy issues. Before that, she worked in the office of the Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton, where she was special assistant to the State Department’s deputy chief of staff and wrote speeches for Secretary Clinton. She recently packed up her apartment in Washington, D.C., and backpacked around Myanmar with Mina Lee and will continue traveling around Southeast Asia and Europe for the summer. She’ll be attending graduate school at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to get her MPA/MBA this fall and said she is excited to join the Harker-in-Boston crew! In spring, she ran in the Boston Marathon in an effort to raise money for the Aga Khan Foundation, one of the world’s largest international development organizations. “Our team of three runners successfully raised over $60,000 … and Amanda Polzin came out to watch!” she reported.

Meghana Dhar graduated with high honors from UC Berkeley in 2010 and has been living in San Francisco since then. “I’ve been working in strategy and marketing and analysis, first at Visa, and now at eBay. I’m very in touch with Harker, from staying connected with the debate team, to currently living with two of my best friends from Harker High! I will be leaving the city in the fall and attending Harvard Business School,” she said.

Singer Tara Chandra recently released a limited 7″ vinyl edition of a single she released last summer called “Who You Do.” We look forward to more updates on her singing career!

Akhil Mehta helped teach a class for Harker’s middle school science research program. He recently finished his master’s program at UC Berkeley and is in the process of applying to medical school.

2007

While chaperoning the grade 8 students on an outing to Great America, Harker’s middle school Latin teacher, Lisa Masoni, ran into former student Elizabeth Cutler. “She is now teaching English and history at the Cornerstore Academy in San Francisco and was at the park chaperoning her own seventh and eighth grade students,” said Masoni.

2009

Daniel Kim was awarded a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans of up to $90,000 toward the study of medicine at Yale University. He was one of 30 winners in a national competition that attracted more than 1,200 applicants. These awards are of special note because they honor and support young New Americans: immigrants and children of immigrants. To read more on this, please see the full story at: http://news.harker. org/?p=22865

2010

Arthi Padmanabhan wrote in with a tennis update from Pomona College.

“We’ve had a really exciting year! We recently jumped to number six in the national rankings after a few frighteningly close wins during spring break. Individually, I’m captaining and playing singles and doubles for the most part. In doubles, my partner, Mae Coyiuto, and I reached the semifinal of the ITA Regional Championship in the fall and later, The Ojai Tennis Tournament,” she reported.

2012

Sachin Jain was recently in town and met with Harker upper school math teacher Gabriele Stahl for dinner.

Neel Salukhe was recognized by his coach for maintaining a high GPA while excelling at football at the University of Washington.

2013

Drew Goldstein, Michelle Douglas and JP Doherty had a blast cheering on their hometown and new college town teams in Boston for the A’s/Red Sox series.

Maverick McNealy qualified for the 2014 U.S Open, the first Harker grad known to do so, and he has been garnering all kinds of attention! Stories have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, the San Jose Mercury News and Golf Week. His whole family – mom Susan; Dakota, grade 10; Colt, grade 9; and Scout, grade 7 – will be in the stands and dad, Scott, will be caddying for him. The Open started as Harker Quarterly went to press, so we weren’t able to report on how he did, but our pride in having him there is unrelated to his score! We’ll report more in the fall issue!

2014

Congratulations to the Class of 2014 on your graduation and welcome to the Alumni Association! We look forward to hearing updates from you!

August 6, 2014Tags: Harker School