Three stock-picking teams from Harker qualified to participate in The Stock Market Game at the international DECA conference in May and Harker students grabbed three of 25 top spots in the Western region, beating out more than 1,200 other Western teams.
Teams with the highest portfolio returns compared to the S&P 500 stock index made it into this elite group.
Harker’s David Lin, grade 12, earned first place in the Western region and third in the nation. His portfolio totaled a whopping $179,388, or nearly 80 percent over the S&P 500 stock index.
Steven Wang, Aaron Huang and Leo Yu, all grade 12, placed 14th. Their portfolio totaled $116,549 for a return of 16.8 percent above the S&P 500. The team of Alex Tuharsky and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 12, placed 18th with a 15.3 percent return and a closing portfolio of $115,078.
These three teams are eligible to defend their investment decisions in The Stock Market Game at DECA’s international conference in Georgia in May. DECA prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
“We are very proud of these students,” said Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program. “We are sending the No. 1 ranked finalist to represent the Western region and defending our international title from last year.
“There’s a lot of competition,” Glass added. “We posted the Top 10 Harker investors every week for the whole school to see and have fun with. It was cool to see who moved up and down in the rankings each week.”
The Stock Market Game requires students to select stocks and manage a virtual investment portfolio. The teams start with $100,000 of make-believe money on Sept. 8 and manage their portfolios until “the sound of the bell” on Dec. 12.
Students can invest in instruments other than common stock. “You can invest in mutual funds, exchange traded funds and bonds, as well as stocks. Thus, many of my holdings in the game were not stocks,” Tuharsky says.
“I’m a value investor, meaning that I pick stocks that I think are undervalued (their true value is larger than the value dictated by their market price) and buy these stocks,” Thirumalai explained. “I determine value primarily based on growth trends and corporate financials.”
The Tuharsky-Thirumalai team hit a mother lode with JDST. It is a stock fund “equivalent to a leveraged short position on gold miners,” Tuharsky says. It was the team’s best performer.
The Stock Market Game “teaches participants to stay up-to-date on their business news, and generally creates more interest in the stock market,” Tuharsky said. Although students learned various methods of analysis and scoured the financials, Thirumalai says he also learned that luck plays a role in picking stocks.
Seven Harker faculty members also participated in the game, but didn’t quite match the students’ returns. Art teacher Josh Martinez ended 9 percent above the S&P, earning him second place in the Western Region teacher group.
The Stock Market Game is just one of dozens of competitive events DECA sponsors for high school and college students. About 200,000 high school students participate in 3,500 high school DECA chapters nationwide. More than 5,000 teams participate in The Stock Market Game nationwide.
Tuharsky said he was already interested in a career in finance or economics and the thrill of “The Stock Market Game has pushed me further in that direction.” Win or lose, Thirumalai said the experience was “a ton of fun.”
Three stock-picking teams from Harker qualified to participate in The Stock Market Game at the international DECA conference in May and Harker students grabbed three of 25 top spots in the Western region, beating out more than 1,200 other Western teams.
Teams with the highest portfolio returns compared to the S&P 500 stock index made it into this elite group.
Harker’s David Lin, grade 12, earned first place in the Western region and third in the nation. His portfolio totaled a whopping $179,388, or nearly 80 percent over the S&P 500 stock index.
Steven Wang, Aaron Huang and Leo Yu, all grade 12, placed 14th. Their portfolio totaled $116,549 for a return of 16.8 percent above the S&P 500. The team of Alex Tuharsky and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 12, placed 18th with a 15.3 percent return and a closing portfolio of $115,078.
These three teams are eligible to defend their investment decisions in The Stock Market Game at DECA’s international conference in Georgia in May. DECA prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
“We are very proud of these students,” said Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program. “We are sending the No. 1 ranked finalist to represent the Western region and defending our international title from last year.
“There’s a lot of competition,” Glass added. “We posted the Top 10 Harker investors every week for the whole school to see and have fun with. It was cool to see who moved up and down in the rankings each week.”
The Stock Market Game requires students to select stocks and manage a virtual investment portfolio. The teams start with $100,000 of make-believe money on Sept. 8 and manage their portfolios until “the sound of the bell” on Dec. 12.
Students can invest in instruments other than common stock. “You can invest in mutual funds, exchange traded funds and bonds, as well as stocks. Thus, many of my holdings in the game were not stocks,” Tuharsky says.
“I’m a value investor, meaning that I pick stocks that I think are undervalued (their true value is larger than the value dictated by their market price) and buy these stocks,” Thirumalai explained. “I determine value primarily based on growth trends and corporate financials.”
The Tuharsky-Thirumalai team hit a mother lode with JDST. It is a stock fund “equivalent to a leveraged short position on gold miners,” Tuharsky says. It was the team’s best performer.
The Stock Market Game “teaches participants to stay up-to-date on their business news, and generally creates more interest in the stock market,” Tuharsky said. Although students learned various methods of analysis and scoured the financials, Thirumalai says he also learned that luck plays a role in picking stocks.
Seven Harker faculty members also participated in the game, but didn’t quite match the students’ returns. Art teacher Josh Martinez ended 9 percent above the S&P, earning him second place in the Western Region teacher group.
The Stock Market Game is just one of dozens of competitive events DECA sponsors for high school and college students. About 200,000 high school students participate in 3,500 high school DECA chapters nationwide. More than 5,000 teams participate in The Stock Market Game nationwide.
Tuharsky said he was already interested in a career in finance or economics and the thrill of “The Stock Market Game has pushed me further in that direction.” Win or lose, Thirumalai said the experience was “a ton of fun.”
A memorial for Pam Gelineau, longtime and much-beloved employee, will be held Jan. 24 at 3:30 p.m. at the lower school campus. There will be a tribute to Pam, followed by refreshments. A collection of books also will be donated to the San Jose Family Shelter in her honor. Contributions are welcome; just bring the books to the memorial. Please contact Nicole Hall, nicole.hall@harker.org, for more details and see https://staging.news.harker.org/in-memoriam-harker-quarterly-winter-2014/
Society for Science & the Public (SSP) announced today that 15 Harker seniors were named semifinalists in the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search, more than any other school in the country. In 2012, Harker had a record 11 semifinalists, so this year represents a new high watermark!
“Inquiry, curiosity and persistence embody the culture of The Harker School,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “The development of scientific thinking and effective communication of discoveries is part of instruction in all of the subjects we teach. This is a significant achievement for our school, yet it is a natural outcome of the daily work of our dedicated preschool-through-grade 12 faculty and our outstanding students. When I think of the diversity of research questions that our students posed and the significance of their findings, I am left with so much hope that our next generation will find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.”
More than 1,800 students from 460 high schools entered this year’s Intel Science Talent Search; from those entrants, 300 semifinalists were selected. Each semifinalist will receive a $1,000 cash prize and is eligible to become a finalist in this year’s contest. An additional $1,000 is awarded to each semifinalist’s school. Finalists receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the final stage of the competition, where more than $1 million in prizes will be awarded. SSP will announce the 40 national finalists in this year’s competition on Jan. 21.
This year’s semifinalists and their project titles are:
Shikhar Dixit (“Immunomodulation by Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Line ARPE-19”)
Andrew Jin (“A Machine Learning Framework to Identify Selected Variants in Regions of Recent Adaptation”)
Rohith Kuditipudi (“Bayesian Time Series Analysis of Liver Disease Progression”)
David Lin (“Characterizing Gravitationally Bound Halo Structures in Cosmological Dark Matter Simulations”)
Cindy Liu (“Characterizing Novel Binders as Tools for Understanding Chloride Transport Mechanisms”)
Neil Movva (“How do Teeth Grow? Characterizing the Morphogenesis of the Periodontal Ligament through Complementary Biomechanical and Histological Analysis”)
Pranav Reddy (“Differential Motif Discovery to Isolate Associated Sequences and Relevant Transcription Factors for Alzheimer’s in a Mouse Model”)
Anokhi Saklecha (“The Utilization of RGD-coated Gold Nanoprisms and Optical Coherence Tomography to Target alphavbeta3 integrin: A Novel Method to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells”)
Nikash Shankar (“A Potential Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease: Encapsulation of Curcumin within Polymeric PLGA-PEG Nanoparticles Protects Neuro2A Cells from Beta-Amyloid Induced Cytotoxicity and Improves Bioavailability”)
Sriram Somasundaram (“A Novel Design and Evaluation of Chitosan Nanoparticle Ocular Drug Delivery System Using Protein-Ligand Docking Simulations and pH Dependent Corneal Permeation”)
Kailas Vodrahalli (“Transporting Solar Energy Through Optical Waveguides for Concentrated Solar Power Applications”)
Steven Wang (“Computer-Aided Genomic Characterization of Colorectal Cancer Driver Genes for Oncogenic Transformation of Primary Colon Organoids”)
Menghua Wu (“Characteristics of Drug Combination Therapy in Oncology by Analyzing Clinical Trial Data on ClinicalTrials.gov”)
Leo Yu (“A Novel Algorithm to Unify CMIP5 Ensemble Climate Models for Optimal Climate Projections”)
Andrew Zhang (“The Dearth of Lithium-Rich Stars in Globular Clusters”)
The Science Talent Search, launched by SSP in 1942 in a partnership with Westinghouse, has since become one of the country’s most respected science contests for high school seniors. It has been sponsored by Intel since 1998. Congratulations to students, mentors and teachers, and good luck in the next round!
Kudos to inspiring young social entrepreneur Suraya Shivji, grade 12, who created an altruistic app to raise money to help African orphans become self-sufficient.
Shivji taught herself to program iPhone gaming apps and get them posted on Apple’s app store. She is now using them, along with a crowd-funding campaign she began this year on her website, Rizikitoto, as a source of revenue for the needy orphans.
The website has generated about $1,300 for the children at a Ugandan orphanage, Bright Futures Home, with money from each app designated for a particular child. The orphanage program is further supported by Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit group that seeks to close the gender gap in technology and engineering.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
2002
In July, Akhsar Kharebov‘s startup, Infometers, was acquired by Validic of Durham, N.C. Validic is the health care industry’s leading technology platform for easy data access to a world of mobile health and in-home devices, wearables and patient health care applications. Located in Mountain View, Infometers has become Validic’s West Coast office. The Infometers team will continue to work on the companies’ joint vision of connecting monitoring device data to the health care system.
Across the Atlantic, Tiffany Duong ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, as part of her “#30×30” – the 30 things she did to celebrate turning 30! She describes the experience as scary and intense, but awesome.
In September, Sean Haq visited Seoul, Korea, to attend Jerry Chi‘s wedding. For significant events like weddings, traveling in style is a must! Photos of the friends enjoying the occasion are included in the Celebrations section.
Isabella Liu is a second-year MBA student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Prior to Tuck, she lived for six years in the heart of New York City, where she got a master’s in Chinese history and later worked in finance. Naturally, moving to the woods of New Hampshire for school was a huge culture and lifestyle shift. This past summer, Isabella was able to return home when she interned with the business planning and innovation team at Intel. Now back at Dartmouth to finish her MBA, she has finally come to love the beauty and serenity of the Upper Valley. At Tuck, Isabella has been focused on entrepreneurship, technology, strategy and leadership. While there is a lot to enjoy about business school, her favorite part is playing bass in the Tuck (pop rock) band. After school, Isabella plans to move back to the Bay Area to work on her ecommerce search engine startup.
2003
Peter Noonan has a new baby girl! Please see the Cel- ebrations section for details.
2004
Mickey Selbo-Bruns married Caitlin Burgess in Vermont this past July. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
2005
Kim Wong was thrilled to appear in the short movie “Text Amy,” which screened at the Miami Short Film Festival Dec. 5-12 (check out the trailer: http://www.textamyshortfilm.com/). Kim is a musical theater certificate graduate of the Harker Conservatory and actor/ director living in New York. She previously appeared on the TV show Blue Bloods (http://www.cbs.com/shows/blue_bloods/) on CBS, as a schoolgirl, about two-thirds of the way through the show. “This past summer I worked at Triad Stage in Greensboro, N.C., playing Helena in ‘All’s Well That Ends Well.’ I also appeared in the re-enactments on the Animal Planet show ‘Monsters Inside Me.’ (Beware, this show is a bit graphic! It’s all about parasites.) I’m filming a lead in a new Web series called ‘Working Title’ that will be produced next year,” reported Kim.
Sara Laymoun had a baby girl. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
Shaun Mohan passed on the good news that he matched for a surgery residency at Stanford. “It is the postgraduate training which follows medical school. The process is a bit different than college/med school applications in that you and the program each create a rank list, and on Match Day you find out the results of where you will be continuing your training. Residency training differs in length for different specialties, but allows for obtaining your medical license after your first year, and becoming a board- certified physician at the end of your last year of training,” Shaun explained.
2006
After three years living in Kazakhstan, Lauren Gutstein has returned to the East Coast to work at the Wilmington Friends School in Delaware. She describes the school as “Harker-like with a Quaker flair.”
In September, Neil Chao and Heidi Wang ’08 celebrated their marriage at the Los Altos History Museum. Several Hark- er alums joined in the festivities. Please see the Celebrations section for more details!
A group of ’06 grads had a fun mini reunion in Boston, when Meghana Dhar moved over the summer to start school. “I moved to Boston in August and found that a lot of Harker alumni were in the area, so I coordinated a couple get-to-gethers,” she recalled. Shown in this picture with her are pals Kat Hudkins, Hann Yew, Amira Valliani, Avanti Deshpande, Ira Patnaik, Amulya Mandava and Yi Sun.
2009
The Harker Class of 2009 held its five-year reunion at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in San Pedro Square on Nov. 29. A good time was had by all!
2011
Ziad Jawadi reports that he is now a senior at Georgetown University studying Middle Eastern studies. “My professional interests lie in financial services and public policy. This summer, as a strategy consulting intern at Deloitte in Abu Dhabi, I advised clients on strategies to achieve institutional objectives through quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the past, I worked with the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, the U.S.-UAE Business Council, as a research assistant to a leading professor at Georgetown and the Republican Governors Association. My internships developed my analytical skills and quantitative reasoning while creatively problem-solving with teams,” he said. Ziad further shared that he has a passion for business and trade relations between America and the Middle East with skills blending the two fields. “I am of Arab heritage and have an solid background in the Middle East. As an Arab-American, I feel a sense of moral duty to return to the Arab world post-graduation and help develop it,” he added.
2012
Nicole Dalal and Govi Dasu ’12 both happened to be in Delhi working on research projects and decided to have an impromptu meet-up. They enjoyed lunch at Khan Market and then took the metro over to the famous Jama Masjid, where this picture was taken.
2013
In mid-September, Maverick McNealy, who is on the Stanford University golf team, won his second golf tournament of the season at The Illini Invitational, held at the famed Olympia Fields in Chicago, site of several major championships. The final results show Maverick picking up his second win in as many outings by claiming top honors at the invitational. Maverick, who collected the first win of his collegiate career at the Southwestern Intercollegiate, fired three consecutive rounds of 71 to finish 3-over-par 70 at Olympia Fields Country Club. To read more about it: http://smgstories.blogspot.com/2014/09/cardinal-play-at-famed-olympia-fields.html.
Michelle Douglas, Tara Rezvani, Neel Bhoopalam and Patricia Huang had a blast hanging out together in Lake Tahoe this past summer. Here they are shown getting ready to enjoy a fun afternoon of water sports.
2014
Katie Gu is a freshman at Stanford University and a former member of the Santa Clara Aquamaids synchronized swimming club. She represented the United States at the 2011 Comen Cup as a member of the U.S. 13/15 national team and at the 2014 Junior Pan American Championships as a member of the U.S. junior national team. To read more about her: http://www.gostanford.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30600&ATCLID=209694416
In mid-November upper school math teacher Victor Adler had a reunion dinner with 12 alumni from the Class of 2014 – all Stanford students who went to Harker when Adler served as dean of their class. They met for a delicious dinner at Thaiphoon in Palo Alto, where they enjoyed catching up with one another.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
1973
Alan Stevens sends a warm “aloha” from Maui, where he now resides. Previously, he lived in Pasadena and worked as the general manager for Gryphon Corp. for 15 years. Four years ago, after his father passed away, he relocated to Hawaii to be near his mother, who was living there by herself. He has taken up paddle boarding, enjoys taking his girlfriend’s dog out for walks on the beach and gardening, and is learning American Sign Language; he also helps take care of his mother’s house. “I put a new roof on the house and next year I am going to build another rental myself. I also learned how to blow glass. I belong to the Rotary Club of Kihei-Wailea and am active in the community. Last but not least, I finally have the time to pursue my passion, which is playing music. I am currently in three bands as a guitar player and working on a solo project,” he said.
1981
Michael Cini is keeping busy as a juvenile probation officer with Maricopa County, Ariz., where he has worked for nearly 18 years while raising his two teenage children. Reflecting back upon his time at Harker he said, “My favorite memory was when actor Burt Young came to Harker and signed autographs for everyone there. I still have it to this day. Also I have fond memories of playing tetherball.”
Monette Matkovich Lindblom is a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran. “I’ve been living in Reno for almost 20 years with my husband, Monte. We have two children, Letishia (24) and Zachary (14). We have a grandson, Cash (1). Letishia is expecting another baby boy in December! My favorite memory would be of doing a commercial skit in Miss Conway’s third grade class. We were sitting in a rowboat singing the Oscar Meyer bologna song! I also remember playing out at recess that year while it was snowing. We were all so happy that day because it rarely snowed in San Jose,” she recalled.
1987
Joe Chen recently visited the Saratoga campus, site of the school’s former boarding program. Here he is shown taking a selfie with Pam Dickinson, director of Harker’s Office of Communication. Joe had just completed a month- long rotation at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and was soon headed back to medical school at Creighton University in Nebraska. “We were having fun touring the old dorm area and this photo was taken outside what was once Joe’s dorm window,” recalled Pam.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
In fall, two annual events – the Harker Harvest Festival and Homecoming – brought many alumni together, where they enjoyed reconnecting with the Harker community.
At the end of September, Harker’s Homecoming game was held on Davis Field, where alumni were warmly welcomed home during a family-friendly tailgate party. Several dozen alumni turned out for the party, where they enjoyed dinner, mingled with faculty and staff, and watched the Eagles’ winning game.
Then in mid-October, alumni returned for the Harker Harvest Festival, the school’s 64th annual Family & Alumni Picnic. More than 100 alumni attended the daylong event, held on the middle school campus. During the picnic there was a special area reserved for alumni, with a delicious barbecue. Many alumni also volunteered at the picnic, working in shifts at various booths.
Alumni at both events agreed that a fun time was had by all!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
In November parents of Harker’s most recent graduates assisted the alumni office in an annual tradition of assembling college care packages for current college freshmen. This year, 30 parents united to send an array of interesting items to the Class of 2014.
Among the products included in this year’s packages were friendly notes and well wishes from advisors, teachers and the class dean, as well as sweet and salty snacks. Goodies included Rice Krispies Treats, fruit snacks, granola bars, chocolate chip cookies, popcorn, Emergen-C, hot chocolate mix, candy, gum and lollipops. The packages were designed to give the former students a boost of encouragement just before their finals began, and help them finish out their first semesters away from home on a bright note.
Also in the packages were custom-designed gum packages with the message “Harker Alumni – We Stick Together,” custom alumni M&Ms and a bookmark printed with the words “The journey is never truly over, it just changed course,” courtesy of Harker’s librarians.
According to Karri Baker ’84, director of alumni relations, several Class of 2014 agents were instrumental in helping to get the care packages to the alumni’s university mailboxes.
“We wanted to let the Class of 2014 know that we are thinking of them and sending good thoughts their way. The care packages were assembled with love from parents of alumni and alumni volunteers,” Baker said, adding that she hopes the packages will encourage the 2014 alumni to stay connected with Harker through participation with the Alumni Association.
She urged alumni to “please come back and visit, or drop a line and let us know how you’re doing!”
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Last year, to honor the memory of beloved former faculty member Jason Berry, the upper school’s graduating class dedicated their senior gift to creating an orchard in his memory. Fast for- ward to this past fall and, on Nov. 19, Berry was honored again – with a bear statue donated in his name at the opening of the Orchard Garden in front of Dobbins Hall.
“This statue has been generously gifted to the school in memory of Jason Berry by the Class of 2014. The class also gifted the Orchard Garden in honor of the South Bay’s agricultural roots,” recalled Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
An initial tree-planting ceremony heralding the orchard took place in April, with many students participating, including Berry’s former advisees, soccer players he coached, English students he taught and members of the senior class.
Berry was an English teacher and athletics coach at Harker; his nickname, “Bear,” was coined by his close family and friends and quickly adopted by his students. He died suddenly on Aug. 24, 2013 of a pulmonary embolism resulting from a blood clot in his leg. A memorial was held Aug. 29, and family and friends filled nearby WestGate Church to say goodbye. Heartfelt memories of his childhood and early years as a teacher were shared; the loss to his family and the community was mourned.