Earlier this week, Amiti Uttarwar ‘10 was named to the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Finance category. Uttarwar was recognized for being the first known woman to become a Bitcoin Core contributor and becoming one of the few paid developers of bitcoin’s code when she was awarded a joint grant of $150,000 from OKCoin and HDR Global in June. A profile of Uttarwar published by Forbes in July chronicled her life as the child of Indian immigrants who found a passion for community service at a young age, eventually becoming a board member of Girls For A Change, a San Jose-based organization that encourages girls to develop local projects that benefit their communities.
After graduating from Harker, she attended Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in information systems. She eventually landed at Simbi, where she discovered her love of cryptocurrency. After a stint at a company called Coinbase, Uttarwar took a residency at Chaincode Labs in 2019 to become a Bitcoin Core developer, working directly with bitcoin’s underlying code. Her work at Chaincode resulted in a sponsorship by the Hong Kong-based crypto company Xapo and the landmark OKCoin/HDR Global joint grant.
Senior Hari Bhimaraju recently published a paper in the Biometrics & Biostatistics International Journal, a peer-reviewed journal specializing in biological sciences and public health. Her paper, titled “Low-cost enhancement of facial mask filtration to prevent transmission of COVID-19,” examines a variety of low-cost masks to determine their effectiveness in containing the spread of COVID-19. “COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in low-income communities, who often lack the resources to acquire appropriate personal protective equipment and tend to lack the flexibility to shelter in place due to their public-facing occupations,” reads the abstract to the paper.
Bhimaraju’s research was part of a summer internship, but due to safety concerns, she had to conduct all of her research at home. “This is a great example of how resourceful our students are in creating independent research opportunities for themselves,” said Anita Chetty, upper school science chair. “But moreover, this is of course a very important piece of work that has societal implications.”
In the segment, Lu shares his motivation for co-founding YAPA, which stems from his own love of learning and the desire to foster that love in younger kids. “I’m someone who really enjoys learning, and this would be a missed opportunity if we didn’t do something like that,” Lu told CBS.
Senior Andrew Lu will be featured in the winter 2020 issue of the Concord Review, an academic journal that publishes historical research papers by high school students. Lu’s essay on Deng Xiaoping, the former paramount leader of China from 1978 to 1989, “focuses on the underpinnings of modern China,” Lu said. “I chose the topic because China is something that continues to remain at the forefront of political discussion and tensions continue to grow, so it’s more important than ever to have an informed understanding of China’s modern foundation when considering U.S.-China relations and policy actions.”
The essay surveys Deng’s reforms and their current impact on China, including Deng’s ideological and philosophical motivations and the role his reforms play in present-day Chinese politics. Lu’s research was done mainly through libraries and by “using Harker’s incredibly abundant databases,” he said. “I received some guidance and advice later in the process from history teachers and librarians, particularly history teacher Byron Stevens and librarians Meredith Cranston, Amy Pelman and Lauri Vaughan.”
The group’s performance of Ysaye Barnwell’s “Spiritual” was recorded and posted to YouTube as part of the annual C# Harvest Concert, which took place virtually this year. The event is organized by CMU C#, the vocal club that oversees D Flat Singers and other vocal ensembles. “Since holding a live concert wasn’t an option this year, we decided to make it virtual,” said Banga. “The structure of the concert was the same as usual in that we had acts by C#’s performance groups and other CMU a cappella groups, and we also held auditions open to the entire CMU community for the smaller group acts.”
Adapting to the virtual format meant finding new ways to rehearse and put together a performance. “We meet regularly using Zoom, but the lag makes it impossible to sing as a group,” Banga said. “So, we spend most of our rehearsals talking about musicality, learning new techniques and giving individual feedback.”
To create the performance for YouTube, the singers each recorded themselves singing their parts along with the conductor’s recording. “Afterwards, the rest of the choir recorded themselves while listening to the section leader recordings,” said Banga. “This way, we could blend with each other even when we weren’t in the same room.”
The decision to support 1Hood stemmed from the wave of massive protests that took place this year in response to police killings of Black Americans. “The Black Lives Matter movement impacted us all so much this year, and like many others, we were extremely upset and frustrated by the injustices in our country,” Banga noted. “After a great deal of reflection on what we could do as an org, we realized that there is a tremendous lack of diversity in mainstream Western choral music.” As such, Banga and the D Flat Singers’ conductor decided to sing pieces by living Black composers for the entirety of the semester. “We’re currently working on commissioning a piece by a Black composer for next semester,” Banga said. “C# also committed to donating all proceeds from our concerts to BLM related organizations, and 1Hood was a perfect match since they’re a Pittsburgh-based organization that supports Black artists and activists.”
Over the weekend of Nov. 7-8, 16 upper and middle school students took part in BearMUN, a Model UN conference hosted by the Model UN team at UC Berkeley. The conference featured debates between students on a wide range of topics, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the colonization of Mars.
Several students had strong showings at the conference, including sophomore Krish Maniar, who won Outstanding Delegate for representing Iraq in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Junior Daniel Wu also won Outstanding Delegate for representing Sima Cuo in the Crisis Committee for the Unification of the Warring States Period.
Other strong performers were junior Akhilesh Chegu, who received an honorable mention for UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; sophomore Trisha Variyar, who received a verbal commendation for the Court of Versailles: The Reign of Louis XIV crisis committee; Anika Mantripragada, grade 9, and Luke Wu, grade 7, who were each awarded a verbal commendation for their work in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; and Alice Tao, grade 9, who was awarded a verbal commendation for her work on the Unification of the Warring States Period Crisis Committee.
Junior Riyaa Randhawa was recently published in The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal that covers health care policy. The paper, written during a summer internship with Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago, argues that the United States and countries in Central and South America must work together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even though this was not a straight science paper, a lot of the skills I used throughout the process of writing this paper were from [upper school science teacher Chris Spenner’s] class,” she said. “The practice and real research papers I wrote in class…really benefited me here!”
On Nov. 5, the Harker Investment Club and Harker DECA co-hosted alumnus Amit Mukherjee ‘06, who spoke to students over Zoom about his journey from Harker to venture capital and his job as an investment partner at New Enterprise Associates. He discussed how his experiences at Harker and Princeton helped him in his career, and walked students through what his job as a venture capital partner entails by sharing his process of investing in the company Masterclass.
He moved on to highlight his failures in school and as a partner at NEA, sharing his advice on how to stay confident and grow from such experiences through journaling and meditation.
“How he revealed the failures that are hidden behind successes was meaningful to me, and it really reinforced the advice he was giving,” said Alexa Lowe, grade 11. “I also really liked the journaling and meditation aspect of the presentation, which was especially relevant because of the assembly we had about those topics a couple weeks ago.”
On Thursday, the National Scholastic Press Association named the upper school newspaper The Winged Post a Pacemaker Award finalist in the High School Newspaper/Newsmagazine category. The newspaper is one of 60 finalists chosen from 190 students publications that entered the competition. The 24 Pacemaker winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on Nov. 21.
Three teams of judges exhaustively reviewed all of this year’s entries, which fell into three categories: Middle School/Junior High Newspaper/Newsmagazine, High School Newspaper/Newsmagazine and Specialty magazine. Publications were evaluated in areas including coverage, writing, design and photography.
Last week, Dr. Abigail Joseph, middle school learning, innovation and design (LID) director, was appointed to the Computer Science Teachers Association’s Board of Directors. Together with the appointment Charity Freeman of Chicago’s Lane Tech College Prep High School, Abigail noted, this decision “is the continuation of a shift that CSTA is deliberately making to change the face of computer science education so that more marginalized groups are granted access to CS education and opportunities to participate in the world in which they live.”
Joseph has been involved with the CSTA since 2012, when she was a computer science teacher at the middle school, and co-founded the San Mateo County chapter in 2015. Last year, Joseph was part of the inaugural cohort of the CSTA’s Equity Fellowship, helping introduce computer science to teachers in other disciplines.
“I have been involved with various organizations help to encourage more non-CS teachers to learn about computer science and integrate it into their discipline,” said Joseph. “I have enjoyed working with teachers in that capacity and focused my Equity Fellowship project on developing professional learning opportunities to demystify computer science for non-CS teachers.” Working with the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University, Abigail gave computer science education workshops “to shift perspectives on what computer science is and why CS education is an equity issue that all teachers should care about.”
Joseph said she is looking forward to bringing awareness to equity issues in computer science education in her position on the board. “As a board member, I hope to bring voice to those that do not normally have the opportunity to share opinions about systems that create inequities and access in the field of CS and CS education,” she said. “It is important that a diverse array of perspectives are accounted for when systems and policies are created in any organization.”