On Monday morning, the upper school hosted a special assembly featuring cultural commentator Jay Smooth, who runs the popular video blog Ill Doctrine and also founded Underground Railroad, the longest-running hip-hop radio program in New York City.
Smooth referenced the history of hip-hop as an example of how communities can make each other better. Just as rappers, DJs, dancers and other members of New York’s hip-hop communities challenged one another to become better artists and people, so too should other communities make sure that its members are conscious of their own privileges of race, gender, class or ability, and show a willingness to receive criticism. “We need to change how we receive these critiques,” he said, “by fundamentally changing how we think about what being racist is, or sexist or ableist.”
Many people, Smooth said, have treated racism like having their tonsils removed, when it is “more like the plaque that builds up on your teeth every day,” something that must be addressed diligently throughout one’s life. “We are all naturally susceptible to implicit bias,” he said, “and we are all a part of systems we can contribute to, without being conscious of it.”
When being criticized by someone, Smooth advised to “listen with humility, and consider that they’re speaking from an experience we’ve never had.”
The Harker Preschool STEM lab got a makeover, and the young ones are having a ball in the updated facility with teacher Amanda Crook! “The transitional kindergartners were excited to explore all the new stations,” said Caren Drezner, preschool director. “They have STEM journals now to document their discoveries, record observations and draw pictures of their creations.
“Amanda’s vision for the new STEM program is to provide thought-provoking settings for the children to explore,” continued Drezner. “She wants the space to spark curiosity and inquiry as the children grapple with concepts from all areas of the sciences and math strands, as well as incorporate elements of technology and engineering. The new Makerspace and Loose Parts allow the children to design and test out ideas, while Amanda is at the ready to scaffold their learning and challenge their thinking.” Just check out the photos – too much fun!
Two Harker alumni were given Dean’s Awards for Academic Excellence by Wharton/University of Pennsylvania School of Undergraduates this spring. Savi Joshi and Vedant Thyagaraj, who both graduated from Harker in 2015, received the awards.
Joshi was awarded for service to the University of Pennsylvania and/or the greater Philadelphia community. “Savi was recognized with this award for her tremendous efforts in teaching over 150 people about healthy eating in the greater Philadelphia community,” said Lee Kramer, director of student life at Wharton.
“She worked with our Netter Center and the Vetri Community Partnership to create a program that allows undergraduates to learn healthy eating with accessible produce so that they in turn can then teach the local community and younger students about healthier eating,” he added. “During her time at Penn, Savi also served as the co-chair of the Wharton Alumni Relations Council and as a facilitator of the Wharton Roundtables, a peer-to-peer discussion group.
Thyagaraj, who graduated from Wharton’s life science management dual-degree program in May, was presented with the Dean’s Award for Innovation for his remarkable career at the school. His many achievements at Wharton included strong academic performance, serving as president of the Penn Undergraduate Biotechnology Society and acting as a research assistant for the Wharton Global Family Alliance. Along with fellow Penn/Wharton alumni, Thyagaraj also founded Ride-Health, a transportation technology company that provides low-income, elderly and disabled patients with transportation to medical care by integrating with ridesharing providers such as Uber and Lyft and other modes of transport. Ride-Health currently has 12 full-time employees and operates in 25 states.
“We are very proud of both Savi and Vedant!” said Kramer. “They have both accomplished so much here at Wharton and Penn and they leave a great legacy here. In addition to all of their accomplishments, they were amazing students and I really enjoyed working with both of them during their four years at Wharton.”
The theme of the 2019 National Junior Classical League Convention was “apes non sunt solitaria natura” (“Bees are not of a solitary nature”). Harker students participating as members of the California delegation were certainly as busy as bees, attending workshops and contest sessions, assemblies and sporting events. In addition to helping California take the top place in the spirit competition for medium-size delegations, the students brought home the following top 10 places. (Note: Students compete at the grade and Latin level they just completed in June.)
Felix Chen, grade 6, Level 1/2:
2nd in Ancient Geography, Greek Life and Literature, Roman History
3rd in Classical Art, Hellenic History, Latin Literature, Mythology
4th in Latin Derivatives, Reading Comprehension
5th in Academic Heptathlon
6th in Mottoes, Roman Life
7th in Greek Derivatives
8th in Latin Grammar
9th in Latin Vocabulary, Overall Academics
Felix also played on the California Novice Certamen (quiz bowl) team, which placed seventh.
Tiffany Chang, grade 8, Level 2:
4th in Reading Comprehension
5th in Sight Latin Reading
9th in Latin Literature, Mottoes
10th in Classical Greek, Essay
Tiffany played on the third-place Open Certamen Intermediate team.
(Note: Open Certamen teams are made of players from various states.)
Rupert Chen, grade 8, Level 2:
2nd in Sight Latin Reading
3rd in Reading Comprehension
5th in Essay
6th in Greek Life and Literature
Rupert played on the third-place Open Certamen Advanced team.
Michelle Jin, grade 8, Level 2:
2nd in Latin Literature
4th in Mottoes, Sight Latin Reading
6th in Classical Art, Reading Comprehension
8th in Essay
Lauren Liu, grade 8, Level 2:
4th in Reading Comprehension
8th in Essay
Edward Sun, grade 8, Level 2:
6th in Reading Comprehension
Jeffrey Fung, grade 11, Level 5+:
2nd in Reading Comprehension Prose, Sight Latin Reading (Poetry)
3rd in Reading Comprehension Poetry
4th in Ancient Geography, Classical Art, Greek Life and Literature
5th in Latin Literature, Latin Vocabulary, Mottoes, Roman Life, 100 Meters Senior Boys Track
6th in Classical Greek, Hellenic History, Mythology
8th in Latin Grammar
9th in Academic Heptathlon, Roman History
10th in Greek Derivatives
Jeffrey also played on the California Advanced Certamen (quiz bowl) team, which placed eighth.
Kyle Li, grade 11, Level 5+:
2nd in Hellenic History
3rd in Classical Greek
5th in Greek Life and Literature, Mythology
6th in Reading Comprehension Prose
7th in Reading Comprehension Poetry
9th in Greek Derivatives
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
Earlier today, Krish Kapadia ’19 was named among the last round of 2019 National Merit scholarship winners, with a college-sponsored scholarship from Boston University. This win brings the total number of winners from Harker to 11. Congratulations to all who were recognized!
July 5, 2019:
Last month, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the first round of 2019 college-sponsored National Merit scholarships. Recent graduates Nishka Ayyar, Joshua Broweleit and Amelia Huchley were named as winners in this round, and each will receive between $500 and $2,000 for as many as four years at the undergraduate level from the universities they plan to attend. Another round of college-sponsored scholarships will be announced on July 15.
May 9, 2019:
Seniors Ayush Alag, Enya Lu, Rithvik Panchapakesan, Akshay Ravoor, Katherine Tian, Alex Yu and Katherine Zhang were among the second round of winners announced in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program yesterday. Each student won a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Program. The next two rounds of winners will be announced in June and July. Congratulations!
Sept. 25, 2018:
In mid-September, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation identified 68 Harker seniors as Commended Students in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Competition. This designation places them among the 50,000 highest-scoring students (about 3 percent) from the 1.6 million who took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test. Combined with the 43 seniors recently named semifinalists, this news brings the total number of seniors recognized by National Merit to 111, or 57 percent of the Class of 2019.
Harker’s 2019 National Merit Commended Students are:
Ryan Adolf, Hasan Awais, Sumantra Banerjee, Raymond Banke, Sayon Biswas, Donna Boucher, Alycia Cary, Nicole Chen, Ishani Cheshire, Shreya Dasari, Rithika Devarakonda, Nikhil Dharmaraj, Elizaveta Egorova, Aryana Far, Sukrit Ganesh, Carl Gross, Karan Gupta, Ria Gupta, Riya Gupta, Zachary Hoffman, Constance Horng, Jason Huang, Shafieen Ibrahim, Cameron Jones, Abhinav Joshi, Damini Kaushik, Arjun Kilaru, Prameela Kottapalli, Hannah Lak, Taylor Lam, Christopher Leafstrand, Angela Li, Katrina Liou, Erin Liu, Katrina Liu, Adrian Ma, Mathew Mammen, Ihita Mandal, David Melisso, Sara Min, Sonal Muthal, Suraj Pakala, Brian Park, Nishant Ravi, Alexander Rule, Viveka Saraiya, Karli Sharp, Kelly Shen, Andrea Simonian, Sian Smith, Alexander Teplov, Alyson Wang, Anna Wang, Catherine Wang, Cindy Wang, Clarissa Wang, Eric Wang, Gene Wang, Johnny Wang, Michael Wang, Richard Wang, Shania Wang, Henry Wong, Tiffany Wong, Zachary Wong, Kelsey Wu, Laura Wu and Tiffany Zhao.
In April, the student-run nonprofit organization Nanoseed held a special benefit concert at the Rothschild Performing Arts Center. The concert featured performances by pianist Nina Zhou and trumpeter Dylan Girard of the San Francisco Symphony, and Anna Maria Mendieta, a harpist with the Sacramento Philharmonic. The concert also featured performances by Harker students Kai-Ming Ang, Charlotte Blanc, Jessica Jiang, Hanoom Lee, Anna Miner and Jeffrey Yang, all rising seniors; rising junior Audrey Liu; and rising sophomores Spencer Cha, Karolyn Cheng and Angeline Kiang.
The concert raised approximately $8,000 to help reduce poverty in rural China. Several members of Nanoseed are currently wrapping up a trip to Ningxia, an autonomous region of China, where they are providing local students and entrepreneurs with loans and grants.
It is with deep sadness that we share the news that Jason Yu ’12 passed away in a traffic accident in Seattle on May 6, 2019; he was 23. Yu was involved in swimming, water polo, robotics and more during his three years at Harker’s upper school. His obituary can be found here.
Yu’s parents, Charles and Sharon, wrote, “Jason loved nature and being outdoors. His life was full of adventures and excitement. Jason’s passion outside work was to ‘ride my bike and fly my drone.’ His humor and positive attitude were infectious. Jason loved his family. He was especially protective of his little brother, William. He wrote on the first page of his notebook in Chinese “没有什么比家更重要!” (“Nothing is more important than family!”) He kept the notebook next to his computer at work. Jason will always be dearly loved by his friends and family!
“Over 100 friends and family attended a memorial service for Jason in Seattle on May 10, including colleagues from Amazon and classmates from WAB, The Harker School and Purdue University. We are grateful for the outpouring of love, support and prayers from everyone who knew Jason. We LOVE and MISS you so much, Jason!!!”
A memorial service in the Bay Area to celebrate Yu’s life will be held on Saturday, June 8 at 10:30 a.m. at the Alameda Family Funeral Home, 12341 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, Saratoga, CA 95070. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be made to the “Jason Yu Memorial Scholarship in Computer Science” at https://giving.purdue.edu/inMemoryofJasonYu
Please send messages to Yu’s father, Charles Yu, at xiyu@yahoo.com or cards to Nicole Hall at The Harker School, Nicole Hall, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose CA 95129. Contact communications@harker.org with questions.