Employees recognized with service pins

Every year, Harker employees who have been with the school for five years receive a special pin as thanks for their years of service to the community. A new diamond is set into these pins every five years to signify the employees’ continued dedication. This year, 70 employees were honored by receiving new pins or having new diamonds placed. 

They are: 

45 Years

Carol Parris, Modern and Classical Languages Department Chair, Grades 1-8


40 Years

Mike Bassoni, Facilities Director


30 Years

Pete Anderson, Physical Education Department, Grades 6-8

Pam Dickinson, Director, Office of Communication

Georgie Maddams, Corporate Receptionist and Administrative Associate

Steve Martin, Executive Director of Food Service


25 Years

Heather Armada, Director of Transportation

Joe Chung, Director of ELI and LS Summer Activity Program

Brian Larsen, K-12 Production Manager and Upper School Technical Theater Teacher

Diana Moss, Spanish Teacher, Upper School,

Dan Rohrer, Facilities Manager, Lower School

Karriem Stinson, Assistant Athletic Director, Lower and Middle School

Larry Washington, Security Officer


20 Years

Anita Chetty, Science Department Chair, Grades 9-12

Beverley Manning, English Teacher, Upper School

Lisa Masoni, Latin Teacher, Middle School

Brigid Miller, English Teacher, Upper School

Raul Rios, Shipping and Receiving Associate, Upper School


15 Years

Victor Adler, Mathematics Teacher, Upper School

Melinda Gonzales, Academic Counselor

Patricia Andrews, Admission Associate, Middle School

Gayle Calkins, Assistant to Academic Counselors and MS Director of Global Education

Jeannette Fernandez, Mathematics Teacher, Upper School

Colin Goodwin, Grade 4 Teacher

Shelby Guarino, Grade 5 English Teacher

Matthew Harley, Biology Teacher, Upper School

Louis Hoffman, Instrumental Music Teacher, Lower School

Sandra Ignacio, Accounts Payable Specialist

Beatriz Justo, Kitchen Aide ll

Desiree Mitchell, Marketing Manager, Office of Communication

Jaron Olson, Director of Sports Medicine and Sports Performance

Alejandro Osorio, Tech Services Manager

Gustavo Parra Rivera, Catering Manager, Food Service

Pauline Paskali, English Department Chair

Jared Ramsey, Grade 5 U.S. History Teacher

Kate Schafer, Biology Teacher, Upper School

Troy Thiele, Director, Standardized Testing and Scheduling

Lauri Vaughan, Campus Librarian, Upper School


10 Years

Kellie Binney, Vocal Music Teacher Lower School

Imelda Cantu, Grade 1 Teacher

Katherine Chi, Kindergarten Teacher

Arabelle Chow, English Department Chair, Middle School

Chrissy Drummer, HR Generalist and Recruiting Specialist

Jennifer Hargreaves, Admission Director, Upper School

Marjorie Hazeltine, English Teacher, Middle School

Lorena Martinez, Director Enrichment and Supervision, Middle School

Rebecca McCartney, Senior Graphic Designer

Sejal Mehta, Grade 2 Teacher

Kristin Morgensen, Biology Teacher, Middle School

Lola Muldrew, Mathematics Teacher, Upper School

Charlie Ward, Cook ll, Food Service

Tor Warmdahl, Director of Security

Larissa Weaver, Grade 1 Teacher


Five Years

Michael Acheatel, Business and Entrepreneurship Teacher, Upper School

Rupa Banerjee, Kitchen Aide, Food Service

Andrea Bo, Grade 3 English Teacher

Peter Vaqueros, Custodian, Facilities Department

Paul Duran, Dishwasher, Food Service

Fred Nae, Bus Driver, Transportation Department

Isaiah Ornelas, Kitchen Aide, Food Service

Pamela Paredes, Teacher Aide, Lower School

Sara Pawloski, History and Social Science Teacher, Middle School

Kevin Reduta, Assistant Director Enrichment and Supervision, Middle School

Karmina Sanchez, Kitchen Aide, Food Service

Beth Wahl, English Teacher, Upper School

Katie Champlin, Theater Teacher, Middle School

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Boys and girls golf become CCS champions, girls b-ball in semifinals

Harker’s sports successes continued on Tuesday and Wednesday, as the boys and girls golf teams both became CCS champions. The boys team scored 388 to defeat Mitty (393) and Bellarmine (394), while the girls scored 386 to put away Valley Christian (400) and St. Francis (427). Natalie Vo ’21, who committed to play golf for the University of Colorado Boulder, shot a 71 and was named the CCS girls golf individual champion.

Girls basketball made history with its narrow 54-53 win over Carmel High on Tuesday, advancing to the CCS semifinals, the furthest the team has gone in the history of the program. They will play top-seeded Half Moon Bay High School on Thursday.

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Boys volleyball wins second CCS championship, basketball advances to quarterfinals

The boys volleyball squad completed a mid-season turnaround to win its second-ever CCS championship against Prospect High on Saturday. Congratulations to recent graduates Billy Fan, Anish Kilaru, Deven Parikh, Brian Pinkston, Ethan Steeg and Avery Young; juniors Vishnu Kannan and Raymond Xu; sophomores Tyler Beede and Johnny Kuehnis; and freshmen Adrian Liu and Edis Mesic!

In its opening round CCS game, the boys basketball team defeated Monte Vista Christian 74-67 and is slated to face top-seeded Sacred Heart Prep on Tuesday in the quarterfinals. Good luck and go Eagles!

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Class of 2025 takes monumental step at Grade 8 Promotion Ceremony

At Thursday’s grade 8 promotion ceremony, the Class of 2025 formally concluded its journey as middle schoolers and began  preparing to transition to the upper school. Middle school division head Evan Barth welcomed leadership council officers Aaron Bao and Sam Parupudi to speak to the departing eighth graders. 

Parupudi thanked her classmates for helping her grow as a person during her time in the middle school. “You all have encouraged me to make so many decisions that I wouldn’t have even considered had I not been through these experiences with you,” she said. “You all have made more of an impact on my life than you or even I will ever know of, and I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank you for that.”

Bao expressed confidence that he and his fellow soon-to-be ninth graders would meet the challenges ahead and thanked teachers and parents for their guidance and support. “Our teachers are the ones who have laid the foundation of our learning and the ones who have supported us in our endeavors. Our parents have supported us throughout our entire lives in everything we have done,” he said. “Thank you to all who have had the patience to help us pursue our goals.”

Following the Middle School String Quartet’s performance of Handel’s “La Rejouissance,” Rebecca Williams, middle school English teacher and Class of 2025 dean, delivered her farewell address. Williams summarized the students’ many extraordinary accomplishments over the past year, particularly their ability to adapt to unprecedented circumstances, which made clear the importance of finding new solutions to new problems. “We in fact need to do things differently because the new normal is no longer the normal that we left behind,” she said. “So as you enter high school and you start kicking around that question, ‘what are you going to do?’ Maybe you do something differently, because you’ve proven you can. And in doing it differently, maybe you show that it can be done better.”

The Middle School Jazz Band then performed Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train,” and rising senior Dawson Chen, who is also the 2021-22 upper school ASB president, took the podium to deliver a welcome address to the incoming freshman class. Chen shared a pair of stories about the lessons he learned at middle school, one in which the results of an algebra test taught him the value of studying and hard work. “The experience of middle school math classes has instilled in me a notion of working hard and taking no shortcuts,” he said. The second story involved a movie night with his friends, where after witnessing them devour the treats he had helped prepare, he “couldn’t help but marvel at the cheerful, cozy atmosphere that we managed to create together with the power of community.” He called up on the Class of 2025 to reflect on their fondest memories as middle schoolers, “whether it’s cramming your expository writing essays, winning in an epic sports game or going to your first dance, and share those memories with the friends, teachers, coaches and family that you experienced them with.”

Students then each received their promotion certificates from Head of School Brian Yager. Barth then offered his closing remarks, saying, “The status quo can work, but I encourage you to be observant and seek out changes that will make you happy and happier. I am confident that is an effective strategy for you to get the most out of high school and beyond, and I hope you will embrace it.”

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Harker students take titles at VEX World Championship

Harker upper and middle school VEX robotics teams were named world champions at the VEX Robotics World Championship held May 16-22. The VEX Robotics World Championship is the largest robotics competition in the world with over 8,600 students and 798 teams from more than 30 countries competing. The 798 teams were selected from more than 12,000 teams based on their performance in various events throughout the season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was held remotely. The VEX World Live Remote Tournament (LRT) Championship pitted a pair of teams against each other to score as many points as possible. The VEX World Live Remote Skills (LRS) Championship challenged a single robot to score as many points as it could. 

Sophomores Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar won the High School VEX World LRT Championship and were crowned world champions. Pasupathy and Shivakumar were undefeated among the 307 participating high school teams throughout the qualifying and elimination rounds until the finals of the tournament, in which they competed against the best high school teams in the world. In the finals, the pair won two out of the three matches to be crowned world champs.

In the Middle School VEX World LRT Championship, the one-person team of Kaitlyn Su, grade 8, was crowned the world champion in the middle school division, comprising 166 teams. She went undefeated against the best middle school teams in the world. She won all her matches in the qualifying and elimination rounds, including a sweep of the finals.

In the High School VEX World LRS Championship (comprising 189 high school teams), ninth graders Jordan Labio, Sriram Bhimaraju and Zachary Blue earned the coveted Judges Award, given to the team that is most deserving of special recognition. 

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Grade 5 takes final steps as lower school students

Yesterday, fifth graders celebrated their final day as lower school students at the grade 5 promotion ceremony. Due to COVID-19 safety restrictions, only students were permitted to attend in person. Families of the students viewed the ceremony from home via a livestream.

“It has been a pleasure being your principal for the last two years,” said Kristin Giammona, grades 4-5 division head. “I know you’re going to love your new campus and represent The Harker School well in the future in all of your endeavors.”

Kate Shanahan, grade 5 English teacher, was chosen by students to deliver some farewell remarks to the Class of 2028. Shanahan congratulated the students on completing their journey through the lower school and completing an entire school year remotely. “Your next chapter includes having the honor of being the first sixth graders to step foot on a brand new middle school campus with teachers and students who can’t wait for you to arrive,” she said. “All of us here at Bucknall look forward to seeing what you do.”

The newly minted middle schoolers then stepped up to receive their certificates one by one, each handed to them by Brian Yager, head of school.

Rising eighth graders Ananya Pradhan and Luke Wu then spoke to the incoming sixth graders to give them a preview of what awaits them in their future lives as middle school students, including advisories, extracurricular activities and new electives. “We welcome you and we hope that you are equally thrilled to be coming up here,” said Pradhan.

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Girls tennis wins first team CCS championship, Chung ’21 wins swimming titles

Harker girls tennis made history over Memorial Day weekend, winning its first-ever Central Coast Section championship with a 6-1 win over Menlo School. It was the fourth team CCS championship in school history. 

Harker swimming also had a successful weekend at the CCS Swimming Championships, as Matthew Chung ‘21 became the CCS champion in both the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard butterfly.

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Zoom CEO Eric Yuan engages in special Q&A session

On Tuesday, Zoom CEO and Harker parent Eric Yuan made a special Q&A appearance for the Harker community. In a conversation with Brian Yager, Harker’s head of school, Yuan covered a range of topics, including how Zoom handled the sudden massive increase of users last year, the importance of a healthy company culture and lessons he has found helpful in his career.

Zoom, founded in 2011, was envisioned as a company primarily for enterprise and government customers. When the COVID-19 pandemic made working at home the new normal, Zoom was faced with a mass influx of new “consumer use” cases, Yuan said. The company suddenly faced an increase of 30 times the normal number of users, and employees worked tirelessly to prevent outages and improve the user experience.

“The usage is coming from all over the world, so that’s why our team, we were working extremely hard,” Yuan said. He recalled having as many as 19 Zoom meetings a day, and enduring “more sleepless nights than at any time in my career.”

Adapting Zoom to non-enterprise and non-government use also meant dealing with new security challenges. Inexperienced Zoom users, for instance, would sometimes mistakenly post Zoom meeting IDs to their social media accounts, inadvertently bringing in malicious users. “But we learned from that,” Yuan said. We doubled down, tripled down on privacy and security.”

He credited Zoom’s ability to weather these storms to the company’s culture. “As the CEO of the company, my number one priority is to think about everyday how to make sure our employees are happy,” he said. To this end, employees volunteer to organize events and initiatives, including reimbursements for employees who purchase books for themselves and their families. Investing in company culture, Yuan said, helped Zoom greatly when the company was at its busiest during the pandemic. “I did not receive any complaints,” he said. “All of our employees worked so hard around the clock, every day.”

In considering lessons that proved important over the course of his career, Yuan remembered his father’s advice to work hard and remain humble. He also recalled how important gratitude was to his grandmother. “That’s probably the number one thing that really matters from my perspective,” he said, adding that a lack of gratitude can lead to arrogance, which inhibits progress. “We’re all working very hard, and whenever we make progress, first of all we are so grateful for our customers’ support. I’m so grateful for our employees’ hard work. I think gratitude is extremely important for any leader, for any company, to make progress.”

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Alumni research panel offers insight and advice to current students

Earlier this month, the Harker Research Club hosted a panel with Vikas Bhetanabhotla ‘14, Cynthia Chen ‘20, Anastasiya Grebin ‘18 and Ruhi Sayana ‘19, who spoke about their post-high school careers and offered advice on how to find research opportunities. 

The panelists each shared what they had done after graduating from Harker and how the research they conducted as Harker students helped shape their current work. At Harker, Sayana, who currently works in a lab at Stanford University studying neurodegenerative diseases, had a significant interest in pediatric oncology before becoming interested in genetics. “When I was applying to labs at Stanford, I was trying to look at something at the intersection of pediatric disease and genetics, and that’s how I ended up at the lab that I am now,” she said. “So [my work at Harker] definitely informed it.”

Bhetanabhotla, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 and now works at Palo Alto Networks, was heavily interested in machine learning. “My research was the intersection of cosmology with machine learning, so that research experience with machine learning really guided my interests through college,” he said. This carried through to his post-college career, as machine learning is now a part of his work at Palo Alto Networks

“In high school pretty much all of my research was wet lab, and I jumped around a lot,” said Grebin. “I did some plant science. I did some data set analysis for cancer mutations.” As a sophomore, she participated in a directed evolution project that “didn’t pan out,” but she now attends CalTech, “which is the place where directed evolution was essentially invented,” and her work now incorporates directed evolution to create viral constructs. 

Most of Chen’s projects at Harker were in bioinformatics, which incorporated biology and computer science. Her work in that area earned her a spot as a finalist in the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search. She is now attending Harvard University and works in a lab at MIT, doing research to learn how to better explain how artificial intelligence models work. “I think the projects [I worked on at Harker] gave me a good starting point for figuring out what I wanted to explore further in college,” she said.

The panelists also offered advice on how to find research opportunities in high school. “It’s all about casting a wide net,” Bhetanabhotla said. “I knew I was interested in the astronomy area a little bit but I was also interested in biology potentially so I just emailed a lot of different professors.” 

Sayana agreed. “You’re in high school,” she said. “This is the time to explore as much as you can, and if you’re reaching out to labs there’s a very high chance that a lot of people won’t respond to you, so the wider out you go, the better chance you’re going to have at getting a response.”

Chen recommended the approach of emailing research labs that seemed potentially interesting or open to taking on high school students, “because I didn’t really know specifically what I wanted to do in terms of research in high school because you’re exposed to so many different subjects.”

Grebin did much of her research in high school at Harker after school. “I kind of advocate for that path for at least the first couple of years before you decide to move on to working in a lab and doing slightly more in-depth research,” she said. “Simply because you have so much more ability to pick what you want to do. I miss being able to pick the project that I want to work on as an undergraduate.”

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Misha Ivkov ’17 receives CMU computer science scholarship

Late last month, Misha Ivkov ‘17 received the Mark Stehlik Alumni Undergraduate Impact Scholarship from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science (SCS), which “recognizes and supports SCS undergraduates whose drive for excellence extends beyond the classroom,” according to the CMU SCS website. The scholarship is awarded to students as they approach the end of their undergraduate career. “Awardees have demonstrated a desire to make a difference in SCS, the field of computer science and the world around them,” a news story posted on the website states. 

According to the story, Ivkov’s drive was applied not only to his own studies but to teaching other students, for which he was awarded the Alan J. Perlis Undergraduate Student Teaching Award. He has served as a teacher’s assistant in three classes and co-developed a student-taught class to help students give technical interviews.

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