Two Harker students earned high marks in this year’s Chemistry Olympiad, organized by the American Chemical Society. Swapnil Garg, grade 12, was named a high honors student, having placed among the top 50 students in the country. Annie Ma, grade 10, placed in the top 150 and was named an honors student. The Chemistry Olympiad begins with local competitions, which attract nearly 16,000 high school students each year. The highest-scoring students from each school are eligible to take the national exam. More than 1,000 students took this year’s national exam.
The boys volleyball season came to an end over the weekend as the team came up short at the NorCal finals. The week started with a 3-0 win over St. Patrick/St. Vincent of Vallejo, followed by a spirited 3-2 win over CCS champs Carmel. However, the Eagles lost to Amador Valley in five games in the finals. Still, the year was a huge success as the Eagles made the CCS finals and NorCal finals for the first time in Harker history. Congrats on a great year!
Lacrosse
A big congrats to Elise Mayer, grade 11, for her NorCal team’s division championship competing at the US Nationals Lacrosse tournament in Stony Brook, N.Y. Elise scored twice in the championship game as the team of elite NorCal players competed against 60 other regional teams from throughout the country.
All-League Honors
It was one of the best spring seasons in Harker history and it showed, as many Eagle student athletes were honored with All-League recognition.
Lacrosse: Nellie Tonev, grade 10, was named goalkeeper of the year; first team honors went to Elise Mayer, grade 11, Lauren Russell, grade 12, Heidi Zhang, grade 11, and Tonev; Lisa Barooah, grade 9, and Grace Hajjar, grade 10, were named to the second team; and Sara Yen, grade 9, was an honorable mention.
Swimming: Vivian Wang, grade 12, and Ethan Hu, grade 10, were the girls and boys league MVPs; Jason Kwok, grade 9, Matthew Chung, grade 9, and Yannick Bohbot-Dridi, grade 12, were named to the first team; and Rhys Edwards, grade 9, was named to the second team.
Boys Volleyball: Jarrett Anderson, grade 11, was named the co-junior of the year, with Billy Fan, grade 9, named the freshman of the year; Anderson and Fan were also each named to the first team; and Charlie Molin, grade 11, and Jeffrey Kwan, grade 10, were named to the second team.
Boys Golf: Daulet Tuleubayev, grade 12, was the league co-MVP; Jaimin Bhagat, grade 10, and Jin Kim, grade 12, were named to the first team; and Bradley Lu, grade 9, and Victor Shin, grade 12, earned second team honors.
Softball: Kristin LeBlanc, grade 12, was named to the first team; Anika Rajamani, grade 11, and Taylor Lam, grade 11, both earned second team honors; and Cameron Zell, grade 11, was an honorable mention.
Baseball: Dominic Cea, grade 12, earned first team catcher honors, with Matthew Kennedy, grade 12, and Max Lee, grade 10, named to the first team outfield; Nicholas Coulter, grade 9, was a second team Infielder; and Luke Wancewicz, grade 9, earned an honorable mention.
Track and Field: Ayush Vyas, grade 11, was a first team recipient; honorable mentions went to Anna Weirich, grade 9, Grace Koonmen, grade 12, Anthony Contreras, grade 12, Mitchell Granados, grade 11, Marcus Tymous, grade 11, Angel Cervantes, grade 12, and Ryan Adolf, grade 11.
Boys Tennis: David Wen, grade 12, Mihir Sharma, grade 10, and Richard Hu, grade 10, were named to the first team; Randy Zhao, grade 12, and Neil Bai, grade 12, earned second team honors; and Ramanand Vegesna, grade 10, was an honorable mention.
Urvi Gupta ’14 is finishing up her years at Stanford this spring, earning a degree and putting on a conference – and it is hard to say which she is most excited about.
The conference was the culmination of a three-month long initiative called Disrupt Diabetes, a unique, patient-forward innovation challenge, said Gupta, who is earning a B.S. in human biology with a concentration in behavioral science and health design. The challenge included 12 teams of five; with speakers, judges, mentors and volunteers, about 80 people attended the conference.
The challenge was designed to put diabetes patients in the driver’s seat of innovation. Twelve patients were partnered with designers and students in March, and these teams spent nine weeks uncovering compelling needs rooted in the patient’s day-to-day experiences.
From there, teams conducted user research, interviewing diverse stakeholders and doing landscape and literature reviews. On May 20, the teams met at the Stanford School of Medicine for a design sprint, where they were joined by a medical expert and thought leader. The overarching goal was to leverage diverse perspectives to generate impactful and viable solutions to patient needs. At the end of the conference, each team pitched its need and solution to a panel of judges, who selected three winning projects to receive a monetary award and mentorship to continue work after the challenge.
Gupta was ecstatic about the results. “Over the past few years, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to delve into the health care space from a variety of angles,” she said, “but one of the primary perspectives has been from the lens of innovation and specifically leveraging design thinking (a problem solving framework) as a tool to create change within health care.
“Through a variety of projects, I’ve become extremely passionate about elevating the patient voice, a point of view very rarely heard from, despite the fact that they should be at the center of every conversation. In the spaces that I’ve been a part of, there has been a huge push to begin including patients in these processes, whether innovation at the systems level or placing a bigger emphasis on their experiences through the patient-doctor visit.
“However, it still felt like there was something missing. It is incredible that patients are at the table (in some places), but I wanted them to be spearheading the conversation. Hence, my co-director, Divya Gopisetty, and I came up with a new patient-forward innovation framework, which sought to promote patient partnership. But innovation can’t be done successfully within a silo – all perspectives and expertise are needed. Therefore, we also made sure to create multi-stakeholder teams with the focus of dismantling power hierarchies that typically exist in order to promote the most fruitful collaborations.
“We were specifically drawn to diabetes because of the strength and resilience individuals with diabetes have. As in most chronic conditions, patients are truly the experts on their own conditions, serving as their own doctors for the 99 percent of the time they are not seeing their physicians. We wanted to harness this expertise and use it as a driving force towards more meaningful innovation. Thus, Disrupt Diabetes was born.”
Trying to change medical care in the United States is a gargantuan job, but Gupta was willing to take some first steps. “I think the biggest challenge was juggling being a student and trying to plan this conference; my co-director and I often joked about how we wish we could be doing the conference full time.
“We received so much energy from everyone we talked to – from physicians across the country who gave their time to two students they didn’t know to the patients who became our powerhouses to our mentors, everyone expressed how necessary Disrupt Diabetes was in order to create a larger communal shift in our thinking around innovation. We felt so validated in the things that we have felt frustrated by in our experiences and were trying to fix within diabetes innovation with Disrupt. That energy is what really kept us going during this year.”
The results have been worth it, Gupta said. Three winning teams received monetary awards and mentorship to continue their projects. “Two of these teams had overlapping solutions and were chosen to share an award and collaborate for an even more impactful product down the line,” Gupta said. “This was a huge win for me because one of our primary goals with this initiative was to create deep collaboration between different stakeholders. The judges wanting to promote this collaboration was a sign that we were able to do that. The teams also have the opportunity to present their progress at a diabetes innovation conference in November.”
One other result was the creation of an “innovation framework which can be applied to a variety of conditions and may become an annual conference,” Gupta said. “Many of the people who participated in Disrupt, whether it was for the full two-plus months or just the day of, wished for us to continue this next year.”
Another goal Gupta is pleased to have reached is the creation of a community of Disruptors. “The relationships that came out of Disrupt were so genuine,” she said. “Because everyone came from a vastly different background, each individual had so much to bring to the table and were respected for it. In this process of empathy and listening, beautiful bonds were formed, which will hopefully grow as they take what they saw and felt at Disrupt back into their own communities.”
Gupta plans to continue her education in medical school, but first she is off to South Africa for a three-week conservation photography project, “which I’m incredibly excited about,” she said. While applying to medical schools, she plans to stay in the Bay Area and “work to further health care innovation and elevate all voices in health care.”
“I am so incredibly grateful for all that I have learned from directing Disrupt Diabetes,” Gupta added. “I have grown in so many ways as a learner, a designer and future health care professional, and I want to extend my gratitude to everyone who has supported me on this journey. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience bringing together such amazing minds and seeing the power of compassion in creating a brighter health care future.”
Harker has announced that it will move its middle school program to its Union Avenue campus and phase out the preschool program currently operating at that site.
Brian Yager, Harker’s head of school, explained the history behind this announcement: “Harker’s acquisition of the Union property in 2012 marked a major milestone in the school’s master plan to own all three of our campuses, and plans are now firmed up to fulfill that plan.” Harker currently leases the middle school campus on Blackford Avenue from the Campbell Union High School District, and that lease is set to expire in 2025. “Our original plan was to move the lower school to our Union Avenue campus when the Blackford lease expired, and then move our middle school to the lower school campus,” Yager explained. “However, as the benefits of moving just one school rather than two became clear, including significantly reducing the stress on our students and faculty and reducing the costs of campus improvements, we decided to move the middle school instead.”
Yager added that the school will accelerate the move from Blackford to Union so that the middle school program will be on its new campus for the start of the 2021-22 school year. An architectural application to upgrade the Union Avenue campus to specifically meet the needs of grades 6-8, including the addition of classrooms and co-curricular spaces, is undergoing final adjustments and will be submitted to the city of San Jose this summer.
The original plan also included finding a new home for the preschool when Harker was ready to move older students to that campus. “Unfortunately, while we love the program and it has been a great success, thanks particularly to the efforts of the professionals who have implemented the program, locating a suitable location for the preschool has proven a formidable challenge,” said Yager, “so we will phase out Harker’s preschool program. The preschool will operate for two more years so that our current preschool families can finish out their programs.” He added that only families of transitional kindergarten-age children will be admitted in the preschool over the remaining two years.
Harker has held meetings with the Harker community and with Union Avenue neighbors to update all on the plans. The school will publish updates in the parent portal and on the Harker website as the multiyear process begins. For more information on the school’s plans contact communications@harker.org.
Harker Preschool’s Clover Cottage celebrated the completion of its yearlong Zoo-phonics program with a special “zoo week.” Each child brought in a stuffed animal from home, corresponding with animals from the program, which was then used in a variety of educational activities throughout the week.
Activities included sorting animals, counting the number of similar animals, creating descriptive sentences about the animals and matching the various animals to the appropriate letters. The Clovers ended the week with a zoo party; they dressed up in animal clothing, had zoo-themed snacks, played parachute games with the zoo friends and much more. The children had an “animaltastic” time!
The 2018 senior class officially became graduates on May 24 at this year’s graduation ceremony. Despite unseasonably cold and windy weather, attendees flocked to the Mountain Winery in Saratoga to see the Class of 2018 take this pivotal step in their young lives.
Accompanied by the Harker Chamber Orchestra’s performance of “Pomp and Circumstance,” the seniors made their way to their seats, cheered on by their families and friends. Andrew Semenza’s evocative valedictorian address – which referenced everything from experimental neurosurgery to structuralist literature to Russian master pianist Sviatoslav Richter – was a paean to imperfection, in which he opined, “When we think of irregularity as dirty, we endanger everything.”
Keynote speaker Tanya Schmidt ’08, the first upper school graduate to give a keynote speech at graduation, advised the graduates not to be afraid of unexpected changes. “Have the courage to be curious, and make space to listen to yourself,” she said.
Giving his first graduation address as head of school, Brian Yager imparted upon the graduates his hope that they would work to better the world “not because of the compensation for doing so, but in spite of it” as well as “continually experience and contribute to the power of love.” After receiving their diplomas (to wild cheers from friends and family), the students moved their tassels leftward and flung their caps into the air. Congratulations!
First Lego League robotics team Alpha Wolves – sixth graders Jordan Labio, Dustin Miao and Kabir Ramzan – had an admirable run at the Razorback World Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., held May 17-20. The team placed second in the robot alliance competition and overall project, and took a respectable ninth place in robot performance. The Alpha Wolves qualified for the event in January after winning the Silicon Valley Championship. A world-level competition, the Razorback World Invitational featured 58 of the best teams in the country, and 14 from around the globe. More than 35,000 teams competed in this FLL season, which started last summer. Only 500 qualified for world-level events.
Earlier this month, junior Prameela Kottapalli’s essay, “Because She Has Hope,” was named a Best in Class entry for grades 9-12 in the 2018 Growing Up Asian in America contest. This annual contest, held by the Asian Pacific Fund, celebrates the work of Asian-American and Pacific Islander-American students in grades K-12, who submit artwork, essays and video projects addressing a theme chosen for the year. This year’s theme was My Hope for the Future.
Kottapalli appeared on NBC Bay Area’s Asian Pacific America on Sunday to discuss her essay, which was inspired by the story of her mother, an immigrant who raised her as a single parent. “It’s really my mother’s hope that enabled her to overcome so much, and it’s her hope that inspires my hope for the future,” Kottapalli said during the segment.
Second grader Manalee Chowdhury was recently awarded a bronze medal from the RSM Foundation after competing in the organization’s International Math Contest in March and April. Competing at the grade 3-4 level, Chowdhury answered 13 out of 14 problems correctly in an online 30-minute challenge to qualify for the next round of the competition. The next stage was held in person at various locations around the country, following the format of European Mathematical Olympiads. Bronze medalists represent the top 15 percent of the thousands of participants in the contest, according to the RSM Foundation’s website.
Chowdhury also took second place in the nation in her age group – in which more than 4,000 students participated – as well as in California in the annual Math Kangaroo competition, held in March. More than 29,000 students nationwide took part in this year’s Math Kangaroo, with more than 8,000 hailing from California. Congratulations!
Lower and middle school athletes fought hard and won some great accolades this past season! Check out these hard-working players!
VA (grades 6-8) Gold Tennis: The Varsity A gold tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in first place in the WBAL at 8-0 and first place in the MTP at 6-1. The team finished the MTP tournament in first place and had an overall season record of 15-1. Team awards went to Shika Tseitlin, grade 8, and Dawson Chen, grade 8 (co-MVP), Dhruv Saoji, grade 8, and Shahzeb Lakhani, grade 8 (Eagle) and Anthony Tong, grade 7 (Coaches).
VA (grades 6-8) Silver Tennis: The Varsity A silver tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. Team awards went to Jacob Huang, grade 7 (MVP), Kyle Johnson, grade 6 (Eagle), and Arissa Huda, grade 7, and Athena Wu, grade 7 (Coaches).
VA (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity A team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by high school volleyball players Lauren Napier, grade 12, Isabella Spradlin, grade 12, Emily Cheng, grade 10, Lauren Beede, grade 10, and Dylan Williams, grade 9, finished in a three-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a record of 7-2. Team awards went to Tara Ozdemir, grade 8 (MVP), Brittany Shou, grade 8 (Eagle) and Ashley Barth, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity B team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by the same high school players, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. The team did not lose a single set all season! Team awards went to Elizabeth Shchegrov, grade 8 (MVP), Gwen-Zoe Yang, grade 7 (Eagle), and Leyla Artun, grade 8 and Emma Gurleroglu, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB2 (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity B2 team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by the HS players, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. This team also did not lose a set all season! Team awards went to Sarah Leafstrand , grade 8 (MVP), Sonya He, grade 7 (Eagle) and Ashley Ma, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Belle Carley and high school player assistant Katie Carley, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 5-1. Team awards went to Alice Tao, grade 6 (MVP), Margaret Cartee, grade 6 (Eagle) and Kate Grannis, grade 6 (Coaches).
JVB6 (grade 6) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B6 team, coached by Spring Wang and high school player Katie Carley, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3. Team awards went to Ellie Schmidt, grade 6 (MVP), Emily McCartney, grade 6 (Eagle) and Jasmine Ishikawa, grade 6 (Coaches).
JVB1 (grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B1 team, coached by Ellie Pereira, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 5-0. Team awards went to Angelina Burrows, grade 5 (MVP), Young Min, grade 5 (Eagle), and Menaka Aron, grade 5 and Anika Pallapothu, grade 5 (Coaches).
JVB2 (grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B2 team, coached by college volleyball player Allie Pereira, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 2-3. Team awards went to Elie Ahluwalia, grade 4, (MVP), Delara Gholami, grade 4, (Eagle), and Kira Bardin, grade 4 and Riley Olson, grade 4 (Coaches).
Intramural (grade 4) Girls Volleyball: Team awards went to Syna Sharma, grade 4 (MVP), Shaina Cohen, grade 4 (Eagle) and Kallie Wang, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by high school volleyball players Emily Pereira and Kaitlyn Seawright.
VA (grades 7-8) Baseball: The Varsity A team, coached Richard Amarillas, Matt Arensberg and Adam Albers finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3. Team awards went to Chirag Kaushik, grade 8, and Mark Hu, grade 8 (co-MVPs); Freddy Hoch, grade 7 (Eagle) and Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grades 4-6) Baseball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, Tim Hopkins, Kristian Tiopo and Dan Pringle, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-4. Team awards went to Kyle Johnson, grade 6 (MVP), Brandon Zau, grade 6 and Chirant Shekar, grade 6 (Eagle) and Jack Ledford, grade 6 (Coaches).
Intramural (grades 4-5) Baseball: Team awards went to Luke Wu, grade 4 (MVP), Sahil Jain, grade 4 (Eagle) and Veeraz Thakkar, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Walid Fahmy and Tobias Wade.
VA (grades 7-8) Boys Volleyball: The Varsity A team, coached by Pete Anderson, finished in second place in the ADAL with a record of 7-1. The team went 7-2 overall. Team awards went to Marcus Page, grade 8 (MVP), Jack Hayashi, grade 8, (Eagle) and Maddux Carlisle, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVA (grades 6-7) Boys Volleyball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Sara Pawloski, finished in seventh place in the ADAL with a record of 2-6. Team awards went to Adrian Liu, grade 6 (MVP), Spencer Mak, grade 6, (Eagle) and Vivek Nayyar, grade 6 (Coaches).
MS (grades 6-8) Water Polo: The MS water polo team, coached by Ted Ujifusa, Allie Lamb and Trevor Wong, participated in six tournaments this season. The tournaments are mostly set up for player development and our boys, girls and coed teams all had good seasons. Team awards went to Jasleen Hansra, grade 7 (MVP), Lachlan Rossi, grade 6, (Eagle) and Vishal Rohra, grade 7 (Coaches).
MS (grades 6-8) Golf: The MS golf team, coached by Ie-Chen Cheng, took first place in the WBAL spring tournament held at the Moffet Field Golf Course. The team shot a 158 on the front nine. They beat the rest of the field by 19 strokes! The top eight golfers were Claire Chen, grade 7 (39), Ryan Zhang, grade 6 (39), Freddy Hoch, grade 7 (39), Athreya Daniel, grade 7 (41), Marcus Page, grade 8 (42), Arvin Nidadavolu, grade 8 (44), Jack Yang, grade 6, (47) and Rohan Gorti, grade 7 (48).
LS (grades 4-5) Boys and Girls Track: The lower school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Vanessa Rios and Dini Wong, took second place overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were Cyrus Ghane, grade 4 (800m), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 5 (800m), Ori Muramatsu, grade 5 (long jump) and MacEnzie Blue, grade 4 (softball throw).
Second place finishers were Rushil Jaiswal, grade 5 (50m and 200m), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 5 (400m), the team of Vyom Vidyarthi, Kaleb Goldin, Sohum Arora and Rushil Jaiswal, all grade 5 (4 x 100 relay), and MacEnzie Blue, grade 4 (long jump).
MS (grades 6-8) Boys and Girls Track: The middle school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Vanessa Rios and Dini Wong, took second place overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were Anjali Yella, grade 6 (200m), Rigo Gonzales, grade 7 (200m, 400m and 800m), Ishaan Mantripragada, grade 8 (200m), Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (1,200m), the team of Nageena Singh, Natasha Matta, Cindy Su and Brooklyn Cicero, all grade 8 (4 x 100 relay), and Brooklyn Cicero, grade 8 (softball throw).
Second place finishers were Anjali Yella, grade 6 (50m and 100m), Armaan Thakker, grade 7 (100m), Ishaan Mantripragada, grade 8 (100m), Emma Gao, grade 6 (400m), Cindy Su, grade 8 (400m), Veyd Patil, grade 6 (800m), Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (800m), Dawson Chen, grade 8 (1,200m), the team of Katie Reed, Cynthia Wang, Annabel Yang and Anjali Yella, all grade 6 (4 x 100 relay) and Siddharth Selvakumar, grade 7 (long jump and softball throw).