Amit Mukherjee ’06, a senior associate at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), was included in Forbes magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list of young movers and shakers in the venture capital category for 2016.
Mukherjee has worked at NEA since 2012, overseeing more than $500 million of invested capital. A leading source for reliable business news and financial information, Forbes is well known for its annual lists and rankings. The “30 Under 30” list prides itself on predicting the brightest and most ambitious young adults to watch in the coming year.
“I had been a finalist for ’30 under 30′ the year before, and was then not selected,” he said. “Winning the award after not being selected the year before was a great lesson that sometimes things go my way and other times they don’t, and my long-term outlook would vary little regardless.”
The girls varsity softball team picked up a 12-2 win over visiting St. Francis of Watsonville last week. Grace Park, grade 11, had three hits and three RBIs to lead the Eagles. Harker travels to The King’s Academy on Tuesday.
Baseball
The boys varsity baseball team fell 12-3 to visiting San Mateo High last week. Dominic Cea, grade 10, had two hits and two RBIs in the loss. The Eagles were rained out in their other two contests of the week. This week, the team hosts Westmoor on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Blackford; it travels to Pinewood on Thursday; and on Saturday, it hosts O’Connell High of San Francisco at Blackford at 11 a.m..
Track and Field
The Harker track team competed in the King’s Track Classic over the weekend, and Coach Scott Chisam said it was “probably our best team meet in many years.” Elijah Edgehill, grade 12, ran the fourth fastest time in the 100m and 200m. Anthony Contreras, grade 10, finished first in the 100m and 200m frosh/soph finals. Gloria Guo, grade 10, placed first in the frosh/soph 100m finals. Also this weekend, Niki Iyer, grade 11, competed at the K-Bell Classic and finished first in the 3200m with a time of 10:40.23. The Eagles will face the rest of the WBAL on Tuesday at Sacred Heart Prep.
Swim
The Harker swim team will compete at the Small School Invitational this Saturday at Sacred Heart Prep.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team had a very impressive showing over the past week. First, it placed second at Corral de Tierra Country Club as it matched up with Palma, Salinas and Carmel. Jin Kim, grade 10, led the Eagles with a one-over-par 37. Later in the week, Ryan Vaughan, grade 11, shot the low score of 33 as the Eagles defeated The King’s Academy 176-216. Harker ended the week with a 169-185 win over Evergreen Valley High. Next for the Eagles is a Monday afternoon showdown with Menlo at Cinnabar.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team picked up two more wins last week as it defeated Pinewood 7-0 and Aragon 5-2. David Wen, grade 10, the team of Anjay Saklecha, grade 9, and Randy Zhao, grade 10, and the team of Swapnil Garg, grade 10, and Kai Franz, grade 9, all had come-from-behind victories. The Eagles face off with Sacred Heart Prep this Thursday at the Santa Clara Tennis Center.
Girls Lacrosse
Last week, the girls varsity lacrosse team fell to Castilleja 13-1, but later in the week picked up its first win of the year with a 13-4 victory over Newark. The Eagles will host Saratoga this Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. on Davis Field.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team suffered two tough losses last week as it lost in five games against both Lynbrook and Amador Valley. In the loss to Lynbrook, Andrew Gu, grade 11, had 11 kills, and in the loss to Amador, Ray Song, grade 11, had 12 kills. The Eagles face off with Mountain View this Tuesday at Blackford at 6:45 p.m.
In early March, 89 Harker students traveled to sunny San Diego to compete with over 2,000 other California DECA members at the State Career Development Conference.
The results are as follows:
First Place
Alexander Mo, grade 11, Business Growth Plan
Natasha Maniar and Kelsey Wu, both grade 9, Innovation Plan
Enya Lu, grade 9, Financial Consulting Event
Neelesh Ramachandran, grade 10, Personal Financial Literacy
Enya Lu, grade 9, Principles of Finance
Shannon Hong and Sophia Luo, both grade 12, Travel and Tourism Marketing Team Decision Making Event
Second Place
Mona Lee, grade 10, Apparel and Accessories Marketing Series
Alexis Gauba, grade 11, Business Services Marketing Series
Third Place
Brandon Mo, grade 10, Independent Business Plan
Sanil Rajput, grade 12, Financial Literacy Promotion Plan
Shreyas Chandrashekaran, Shaan Gagneja and Neelesh Ramachandran, all grade 10, Finance Operations Research Event
Vignesh Panchanatham, grade 10, Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling
Fourth Place
Erin Liu, grade 9, Business Growth Plan
Shannon Hong and Sophia Luo, both grade 12, and Lucas Wang, grade 11, International Business Plan
Alexander Wang, grade 10, Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series
Fifth Place
Lucas Wang, grade 11, Business Finance Series
Shreyas Chandrashekaran, grade 10, Marketing Management Series
Rahul Mehta and Vanessa Tyagi both grade 10, Sports and Entertainment Team Decision Making Event
Seventh Place
Shivani Awasthi and Ankita Uppugunduri, grade 11, Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making Event
Emaad Raghib, grade 11, Principles of Finance
Eighth Place
Shea Tuli, grade 10, Personal Financial Literacy
10th Place
Helen Yang, grade 9, Advertising Campaign Event
Amitej Mehta and Vignesh Panchanatham, both grade 10, Business Law and Ethics Team Decision Making Event
Ananya Krishnan, grade 10, Buying and Merchandising Operations Research Event
Ezra Bekele, grade 11, Personal Financial Literacy
Michael Sikand and Dolan Dworak, both grade 10, Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making Event
Additionally, 15 Harker teams qualified for the International Career Development Conference, which will be held in Nashville, Tenn., in late April.
The Florio String Quartet was formed by a group of upper school students (seniors Jason Lee, Luke Wu and Kevin Kim, and junior Cuebeom Choi) in hopes of reaching out with music and serving the less-privileged “with the joys of pop and classical music.”
In August the quartet hosted a fundraising concert benefiting Lucile Packard, featuring classical pieces by Haydn as well as contemporary favorites by artists such as Coldplay and The Rolling Stones.
“The members of the Florio Quartet care as much about sharing their music with the community as they do about the music itself. As a teacher this makes me very proud,” said upper school music teacher and the group’s namesake, Chris Florio, in the Lucile Packard blog post.
In lieu of an entry fee, The Florio String Quartet collected donations, raising more than $2,000 for patients and their families.
Harker Aquila, the journalism department’s student news site, recently published a story about Harker’s new peer-reviewed student science journal, Horizon, currently a work in progress. Read the full story at Harker Aquila!
Last month, 26 Harker students qualified for a chance to compete in the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad and Junior Mathematical Olympiad. As a result, the students were invited to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), which was administered on March 3. Results are still to come. The AIME, which contains 15 questions and lasts three hours, is administered to students who score well on the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) exam. Their combined scores on the two tests determine their eligibility to compete in the Olympiads.
Congratulations to the following students for making it this far:
Lawrence Li, Evan Lohn, Jonathan Ma, Anika Mohindra, Allison Wang and Richard Yi, all grade 12; Kai Ang, Steven Cao, Misha Ivkov, Justin Jia, Winnie Li, Manan Shah, Peter Wu and David Zhu, all grade 11; Swapnil Garg, Linus Li, Jimmy Lin, Joanna Lin, Rajiv Movva and Neelesh Ramachandran, all grade 10; Rose Guan, Jason Huang, Satvik Narasimhan, Katherine Tian, Cindy Wang and Michael Wang, all grade 9.
All-League teams were recently announced and, once again, Harker was well represented in the West Bay Athletic League.
Boys Soccer: Oisin Coveney, grade 12, first team; Omar Hamade, grade 12, second team; Rohit Shah, grade 10, and Jared Anderson, grade 9, honorable mentions
Girls Soccer: Lyndsey Mitchell, grade 11, first team; Anuva Mittal, grade 11, second team; Layla Walker, grade 12, and Maile Chung, grade 11, honorable mentions
Boys Basketball: Elijah Edgehill, grade 12, first team; Rohan Desikan, grade 12, honorable mention
Girls Basketball Skyline Division: Jordan Thompson, grade 11, first team; Joelle Anderson, grade 11, second team; Selin Sayiner and Satchi Thockchom, both grade 10, honorable mentions
El Camino League Wrestling: Davis Howard, grade 11, Anthony Contreras, grade 10, and Danny Reidenbach, grade 11, All-League
Results from the first round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) recently arrived, and the following 10 students qualified to advance to the invitational round: Lawrence Li, grade 12; Misha Ivkov, Andrew Rule, Kai-Siang Ang and David Zhu, all grade 11; Swapnil Garg, Rajiv Movva, Michael Kwan and Joanna Lin, all grade 10; and Rose Guan, grade 9.
The students will participate in the next stage of the competition on March 10.
Since its founding in 2006, NACLO has tested high school students on a variety of linguistics puzzles. The top-scoring students then represent the United States at the International Linguistics Olympiad, to be held this summer in Mysore, India.
Harker Quarterly, the school’s magazine, earned the 2016 bronze award for independent school magazine from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in its District VII Awards of Excellence. The magazine, which showcases news, programs and inspiring people in the Harker community, is produced by the Office of Communication. The publication, which was introduced in December 2009, earned CASE’s silver award in 2011, and won platinum awards in 2013 and 2015 from the prestigious Marcom Awards.
Last week, the Harker golf team traveled to Antioch to compete in the Gambetta Tournament, the longest running high school golf tournament in Northern California. The Eagles finished fourth – Harker’s best-ever finish at this tournament – behind Bay Area powerhouses Campolindo, San Ramon and De La Salle. Leading the way for the Eagles was Avi Khemani, grade 11, who finished in fourth place with a 2-under-par 70, the best-ever individual performance for a Harker golfer at this tournament. The highlight of Khemani’s day was a consecutive birdie, eagle, birdie on the back nine, to card a tournament low 31. Scout McNealy, grade 9, continuing the family linksmen tradition, shot a 1-over-par 73, finishing in a tie for ninth place. The Eagles travel to Corral de Tierra Country Club today to face Palma High School.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team started its season with a 6-1 league win over King’s Academy last Tuesday. The Eagles then headed south over the weekend to compete in the California Tennis Classic in Fresno. After two consecutive years of strong finishes, the Eagles were selected as the only tournament team to move up two divisions, which matched them up with some of the best teams in the state. The Eagles went 1-2 on the weekend, with their sole win coming in dramatic fashion. Harker upset defending Central Coast Champion Clovis West High School in the closest tennis match in both tournament and Harker history; it required three tie-breaking criteria and, ultimately, the winner of the No. 1 singles match to decide to winner. In the clinching match, Ronak Baldua, grade 12, overcame three match points before coming from behind to win 12-10 in a third set tiebreaker. Other strong performers included David Wen, grade 10, as well as the doubles team of Randy Zhao, grade 10, and Anjay Saklecha, grade 9. The Eagles travel to Pinewood on Tuesday to continue league action.
Softball
Last week, the girls softball team traveled to Palo Alto High School and defeated the Vikings 10-5. Tong Wu, grade 12, led the Eagles with two hits and three RBIs. The Eagles will make up their contest with Menlo Atherton as their Friday match up was cancelled due to rain. Harker will host St. Francis Watsonville this Friday at Blackford.
Baseball
The boys baseball team picked up an 11-2 win over North Valley Baptist last week as Miles DeWitt, grade 12, had three hits and three RBIs to lead the way for the Eagles. However, Harker was defeated 6-2 by Crystal Springs Uplands in their league opener. Akhil Arun, grade 10, drove in two runs in the loss. The Eagles host San Mateo on Tuesday and travel to Jefferson High on Thursday.
Track and Field
The track and field team was rained out this past weekend, midway through the Willow Glen Invitational. Before the event was shut down, Alycia Cary, grade 9, ran the seventh-fastest 800m, Elijah Edgehill, grade 12, ran the seventh-fastest 100m dash of the day and Anthony Contreras, grade 10, ran the 10th-fastest time. This Saturday, the Eagles will compete at the Kings Track Classic.
Boys Volleyball
The boys varsity volleyball team went 1-1 last week, losing to Oak Grove in five games. Andrew Gu, grade 11, led the Eagles with 14 kills. Later in the week, the Eagles traveled to Monterey High and came up with a three game win. Chris Gong, grade 9, led the way with 12 kills. The Eagles host Lynbrook on Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. at Blackford and host Amador Valley on Friday at 6:45 p.m. at Bucknall.
Girls Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team dropped three matchups last week, falling to Sacred Heart Cathedral and Gunn, before losing a tough 11-9 overtime loss to York. The Eagles will host Castilleja on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. and Newark on Friday at 5 p.m.
Swim
Even the rain and wind couldn’t stop the Harker swim team from competing this past weekend at the Monta Vista High School meet. Cedric Nowatzyk, grade 9, Ihita Mandal, grade 9, Karen Tu, grade 12, Anika Jain, grade 11, Philip Krause, grade 12, Alex Yu, grade 9, and Kevin Tzeng, grade 10, all swam personal bests at the event. Congratulations to Vivian Wang, grade 10, and Michael Auld, grade 11, who each had CCS qualifying times in their events. The Eagles are back in the pool on March 19 for the Small School Invitational at Sacred heart Prep.