Aditya Dhar ’17 was awarded a final accolade for his high school speech and debate efforts by the Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership. He was named to the 2017 National Student Congress as a member of the senate, based on his performance at the National Speech & Debate Association’s National Tournament in Birmingham, Ala., in June. Dhar was also the Senate Leadership Bowl Winner. Read more about Harker’s results in Birmingham.
Surbhi Sarna ’03 was named the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award by Harker’s Office of Alumni Relations and was honored at Homecoming halftime Sept. 23 on Davis Field.
The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes a prominent alumna/alumnus who exemplifies the very best of Harker, whose contributions have led to extraordinary advances that benefit the greater good, who gives back to his or her community and to Harker, and who inspires others by his or her professional leadership and commitment.
Sarna has dedicated her career to using STEM research to improve health care for women. Her personal medical challenges in her early teen years left her determined to create better conditions in the field of female health.
She studied molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as a clinical scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After graduating from Berkeley in 2007, she worked as an engineer for medical-device companies Abbott Vascular and BioCardia. In 2009, only six years out of Harker, she founded venture-backed nVision Medical, a company dedicated to developing technology to help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer. Following a successful clinical trial, the company received FDA approval for its device in November 2015.
Sarna has been a keynote speaker at Harker’s annual Research Symposium and has been featured in numerous publications including Forbes magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list of young movers and shakers in the fields of science and health care. Congratulations, Surbhi Sarna, and thank you!
This article originally appeared in the summer 2017 issue of Harker Magazine.
Creativity and storytelling run through the veins of Andrew Shvarts ’03. Much of his childhood was spent dreaming up, jotting down and narrating elaborate stories.
At Harker, Shvarts performed in countless plays and musicals – highlights include sinking his fangs into a fake rat during the production of “Dracula” as well as sliding off of the stage and into the orchestra pit during opening night of the upper school’s first musical revue – and produced an outlandish martial arts film as part of a video and motion graphics class.
“I think on some fundamental level, I view the world through the lens of fiction and narrative,” said Shvarts, who is quick to credit three former Harker English teachers – Stephen Wells, Sylvia Harp and Sharron Mittelstet – with furthering his love of language, literature and composition. “It’s just hard-coded into how I think and who I am.”
An English and Russian double major at Vassar College, he frequently videotaped student films – from comedies to crimes – and workshopped his own creative writing. Following college, where he had enjoyed lazy weekends playing video games with his friends, a job ad for a video game writer practically called his name. The position would entail creating weekly episodic content for Electronic Arts’ “Surviving High School,” thus beginning Shvarts’ foray into the world of young adult (YA) fiction. He would go on to serve as a producer for the video game company before assuming his current post at another, Pixelberry Studios, where he has been working as a designer for the past five years.
While he sees merit in both, the writing of fiction, Shvarts acknowledged, remains quite different from the writing of video games. In his case, most of the games he has written, produced and designed fall under the category of interactive narrative. He essentially develops ways for players to create their own storylines.
“If being a fiction writer is being an artist, being a game writer is being an architect,” he said. “You’re creating a space for someone to move into and make their own.”
Shvarts is celebrating the springtime release of his debut YA novel, “Royal Bastards,” which he describes as “‘Game of Thrones’ meets ‘The Breakfast Club,’” comprising key elements that are characteristically associated with both the Primetime Emmy Award-winning fantasy television series and the quintessential 1980s coming-of-age film.
“I think the book is about that precise moment in adolescence when you discover that your parents aren’t the idols you believed them to be, when you’re caught between a loyalty to the values you were raised with and the new perspectives that come with being exposed to the larger world,” Shvarts said.
The first draft took him roughly seven months to write and two months to edit, with plenty of pacing and pots of coffee along the way.
Contributor Jared Scott Tesler is based in Rochester, N.Y.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2017 issue of Harker Magazine.
Judge John Byron Owens MS ’85 earned his first paycheck, for $180, from Harker in 1985. He rode his bike from Cupertino to campus every day that summer to work as a camp counselor. It was the beginning of a journey distinguished by hard work, intellect and honor.
“No one at Harker is surprised by John’s success,” said Pat Walsh, Owens’ fifth grade teacher. “It’s not just that he’s brilliant, which he is, but that he’s filled with integrity.”
Owens, who attended Harker from grades 3-8, has remained in touch with Walsh. In 2014, Owens even invited Walsh to his swearing-in ceremony as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Before being nominated by President Barack Obama, Owens had a successful career as an attorney, served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and graduated first in his class at Stanford Law School. All these successes came with a lot of hard work, one of Owens’ core values, along with honesty and kindness.
“There is no substitute for hard work, especially when you are in high school and college. Hard work now makes the rest of your life much easier,” is advice he has shared with Harker students in the past and regularly shares with his two daughters.
And Owens definitely walks the talk. Last season he coached his eldest daughter’s club basketball team, which made the playoffs. He stressed to the team to work hard at practice but also at home on shooting and dribbling. He realized that a coach cannot ask his players to work hard if he also isn’t willing to put in the time, so he spent hours reviewing game films and statistics, and designed a new offense for the team. They won both playoff games by nearly 20 points.
“So it may seem crazy – a federal judge is spending hours watching youth basketball games – but it was an important lesson for our players and especially my oldest daughter to understand that success only happens through hard work,” said Owens. “It is not fair to have hard-working players led by an unprepared coach.”
Owens has always loved sports and even worked as a marketing assistant for the Golden State Warriors when he was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. But his love of the law prevailed. His law career includes serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for both the central and southern districts of California, as well as a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.
Owens, a big science fiction fan, was lauded by “Above the Law” for “nerding out.” The legal website referenced Lone Star Security & Video v. City of Los Angeles, where he incorporated “a Monopoly analogy and a reference to ‘The Twilight Zone’ to urge the Supreme Court to reconsider its holdings.” Other opinions have referenced “Game of Thrones,” “Star Trek” and the horror movie “The Thing.”
His lighter, nerdier side often peeks through when he returns to Harker, from sharing his experience as a judge with third graders to discussing honors and ethics with upper school students. He earned the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007 and serves on Harker’s Board of Trustees.
“He is well-respected regardless of his role on campus,” said Sarah Leonard, Owens’ third grade teacher and now primary division head. “He has a wonderful way with the third grade students, really driving home his message about hard work, determination, setting goals and perseverance, but he does so in a manner that captures the children’s attention and holds them almost spellbound.“
Owens and his family live in San Diego. In their free time, they enjoy going to the boxing gym on Saturday mornings, where they hit the bags while the youngest takes karate. A perfect day would include a 5-mile run for Owens, followed by a relaxing afternoon and watching the Warriors play in the evening (he’s still a big fan).
Owens values time with his family and, when asked what his proudest accomplishment was, he replied, “That’s easy – my two girls. They both learned at an early age from my wife and me that success in life – academics, sports, the arts – requires hard work.”
Contributor Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
Gargeya is one of only 20 students nationwide to recieve the award; he will use it toward his education at Stanford University. Gargeya earned several awards for the development while at Harker, including a first prize in the RRI physical science and engineering category at the 2016 Synopsys Championships. He was a semifinalist in the 2016 Siemens Competition and a regional finalist in the international Google Science Fair 2016. Here is an article about that accomplishment from the Merc: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/10/saratoga-harker-senior-a-google-science-fair-finalist/)
In his official bio, Gargeya had some nice things to say about his time at Harker:
“Rishab attributes his time at The Harker School for having given him an amazing opportunity to push himself in a highly academic environment. Rishab has been fortunate to have worked with many intellectually driven people throughout his high school career, including his science teacher Mr. Chris Spenner, who has been very influential in shaping his research.”
Read Gargeya’s full bio here: http://www.davidsongifted.org/Fellows-Scholarship/2017-Davidson-Fellows/Rishab-Gargeya
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
While in high school, Elyse VyVy Trinh ’07 attended a Vietnamese Catholic youth group where she heard a priest talk about human trafficking. It lit a fire in Trinh, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, and fueled her desire to make a difference in the world.
“It really hit me that day,” remembered Trinh in a thoughtful, upbeat tone. “I had heard these stories before, but I felt like I was waking up.” Trinh later attended a leadership event that was packed with young people who wanted to change the world.
After the event, Trinh sent an email to two Harker administrators, saying that the school needed a revolution. She and a group of friends dedicated themselves to raising funds – ultimately, nearly $14,000 – to support displaced people in Darfur, Sudan. “It was like Dumbledore’s Army,” she said with a smile. “This was my earliest experience organizing a group of people and it felt so empowering. I realized this is what I want to do – this is what matters.”
While Trinh was becoming an activist, she also considered herself a writer and an artist. Although her family thought she would go into medicine, Trinh wasn’t convinced. But then two things happened that ultimately led her down that path.
First, she read “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, which gave her a new perspective on the role of a physician. The book is about Dr. Paul Farmer, whose passion, dedication and tireless efforts resulted in improved health care for the desperately poor in Haiti and beyond. She realized that following one’s calling can lead to a meaningful life.
Then John Near, a beloved Harker history teacher, got sick and Trinh watched helplessly, wishing here was something she could do. She began to see herself practicing medicine. After a four-year battle with cancer, Near died in 2009.
A family friend told her about a medical program at Brown University in Providence, R.I., that allowed students to explore their passions as undergraduates so that they would develop into well-rounded, humanistic doctors. She took a leap of faith that she could forge a connection between health, community and education.
“Brown’s true education to us will have been this lesson above all: that it is never foolish to feel love; that compassion is the enduring and most important connection among of all fields of study,” she said in a commencement speech at Brown in May 2011.
Trinh fell in love with education at Brown – and even took a year off between her third and fourth years of medical school to earn a master’s degree in education at Harvard University. For this she received a Zuckerman Fellowship, which enables students who have or are pursuing a professional degree to spend a year earning a public service degree.
Meanwhile, she nurtured her passions for social justice, community and education by volunteering with BRYTE (Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment), which works one-on-one with refugee youth in K-12. “I’d like to think I played some role in her success but, of course, I know she achieved all she has without my help,” said Brigid Miller, a Harker English teacher and Trinh’s high school advisor. “VyVy is a force, a magnetic personality whom others are drawn to. She’s a person you want to know forever; she’s my idol.”
She’s also an idol to the young refugees she has tutored and mentored through BRYTE (www. brownrefugeetutoring.weebly.com). Known as “BRYTE Grandma,” she co-directed the summer camp for years and still works as a tutor and advisor. “VyVy is [nicknamed] BRYTE Grandma because she loves our program and all the people in it! Whenever we are trying to contact a camper’s family, we call VyVy because she memorized all of the addresses and she always knows it,” said Mechack Ira, assistant director at BRYTE and former tutee and camper. “I will forever be grateful to VyVy for believing in me.”
As Trinh wraps up her time in Rhode Island and heads to California for her residency, she hasn’t slowed down a bit. In addition to working with BRYTE, she’s trying to connect Haitian peanut farms to global markets and working with young Vietnamese Americans to organize and stand with today’s refugees. Her LinkedIn profile ends with “Come dream and scheme with me!” capturing her mission to make a difference in the world.
Contributor Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
By Vikki Bowes-Mok
When Tiffany Liou ’08 arrived at Harker in seventh grade, she had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. What she did know was that she was interested in a lot of different things, so she jumped in and got involved.
“I remember her start to announcements at school meetings with her energetic ‘Hey, guysssss’ – drawing out the second word and giving her classic huge Tiffany smile,” said Evan Barth, upper school academic dean. “Her energy was contagious, and her peers loved to follow her lead as much as Tiffany enjoyed leading.”
From being president of the Spirit Club and serving on student council to playing varsity basketball and golf and participating in Junior State of America, Liou’s enthusiasm for life and learning led her down many different paths. “High school was one of the best times of my life,” she said with a smile. “Harker gave me opportunities to test the waters wherever I wanted to and taught me to always try new things.”
She attended Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, where she studied marketing and communications. While in college, she did a marketing internship at KGO-TV, an ABC-owned television station in San Francisco. As Liou crunched numbers for Nielsen ratings, she watched the newscasters and realized she wanted to be in front of the camera, not behind it. Although she was intrigued with broadcast journalism, she wasn’t sure about her next step.
She took a job with Salesforce.com out of college but decided to take a TV broadcasting class at Ohlone College, which she absolutely loved. This led to an internship at KTVU, a Fox-owned station, and then she was hired as the overnight assignment editor. Liou juggled two jobs for more than a year, working at Salesforce.com by day and KTVU at night. She took catnaps in her car and learned the power of 5-Hour Energy shots, while working 70-80 hours a week.
“Everything I’ve accomplished, I’ve earned through hard work,” she said. “I don’t think everyone can say they love their job, but I do!” Once she realized her dream, there was no stopping this driven young woman. Her first broadcast job offer came from West Monroe, La.
“This was one of hardest decisions I’ve ever made – to quit a great job at Salesforce in the Bay Area near all my family and friends for a producer job in Louisiana, a state I had never even visited!” she recalled.
After some tears and soul searching, she knew she had to go for it. So she packed up and trekked across the country. This was her first stop on her broadcasting journey, which has taken her from Louisiana to Iowa to Oklahoma, where she is now a reporter at KWTV News 9. She covers everything from hard crime to tornadoes but always works to find a human element in her stories. “There’s always a reason to tell a story because there’s always a group of people it impacts,” she reflected.
Liou learned this firsthand on her way to a new job in Iowa, when her airplane had to make an emergency landing in Greenville, Texas. “Smoke filled the cockpit, panic was everywhere, but we all stuck together and landed uninjured thanks to the leadership of our flight crew,” she reported. “I sent one viral tweet, and ended up on NBC Dallas, Today and CNN before I even started my first day of work. What an entrance!”
Her arrival in Oklahoma wasn’t as action-packed, but she is now enjoying a full life there with her fiancé, Allen, and their two dogs, Suki and Bacon. They are planning a wedding in March 2018 in the Bay Area – where Liou also hopes to fulfill her career dreams. She may not have known her passion when she started as a middle schooler at Harker, but she definitely does now.
As Liou said, “Reporting is my passion and I will go anywhere at any time to cover a story.”
Contributor Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine
1992
Toku Chen attended the March 18 Asia alumni reunion and presented Joe Rosenthal with the Carley Service Award at the alumni dinner on the Bund in Shanghai. The Carley Service Award recognizes alumni or friends who have unselfishly devoted their time and energy, and made significant contributions toward, advancing the programs of The Harker School. Toku gave a warm speech that included memories of Mr. Rosenthal during the dorm days. He also highlighted Mr. Rosenthal’s work benefiting young people, education and fundraising over his 30-plus year investment at Harker Academy and The Harker School.
1994
Leyna Cotran was the keynote speaker at an alumni networking luncheon held during the Harker Research Symposium last month. She focused on the important collaboration between academia and industry.
Alumnus-in-the-media alert! Wajahat Ali has been busy. Here he is in a CNN point-counterpoint discussion on the U.S. Attorney General nominee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=440KPaYH-kI
And here’s an interesting opinion piece by Wajahat in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/do-muslims-have-to-be-democrats-now.html
1996
Several members of the Class of ‘96 met at Campo di Bocce and celebrated 20 years since graduating from eighth grade! Class agent Andrea (Nott) Miles submitted a few photos of the event.
Pictured left to right are Patrick Fellowes, Elizabeth (Keezer) Isaak, Andrea, Wendy (Okimura) Diaz, Sheila Collins, Ann (Chu) Blomquist, Marlen Alcaraz and Steven Blomquist.
2003
Andrew Shvarts published his first book! “Royal Bastards,” for teens and young adults, is the story of a castle lord’s disenfranchised “natural” children who are drawn into castle intrigue. Check out our profile on Andrew on page 48.
2004
Jessica Liu was married over the Memorial Day weekend to Tyler Chang Seaman, who was the boy next door all through their childhoods! Pictured (all ‘04 unless noted) are Vickie Duong, Jessica, Jen Lin and Jacinda Mein (front row); Nickisa Hodgson, Karla Bracken, Laena Keyashian and Christiana Rattazzi ’03 (middle row); and Tanya Schmidt ’08, Casey Near ’06 and Courtney Johnson (top row).
2005
Adhir Ravipati received Positive Coaching Alliance’s National Double-Goal Coach Award. He was also one of four coaches selected out of more than 2,000 nominations to be featured on stage at PCA’s National Youth Sports Awards. Adhir is a football coach at Menlo-Atherton High School.
http://bayareane.ws/2qbbpBy
2006
Gail Nakano is a chemist, but has been a volunteer in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus for seven seasons. The symphony did a great video featuring Gail: https://www.facebook.com/sfsymphony/videos/vl.554392084714335/10154570668528292/ ?type=1
The Class of 2006 met for a 10-year reunion in San Francisco just before Christmas. Alumni gathered to enjoy refreshments, appetizers and plenty of festive alumni company at the Thirsty Bear Brewing Company. There were more than 50 people at the event, including faculty members Brian Larsen and Lisa Radice. It was a nice, long evening – folks stayed quite late catching up and enjoying a (only slightly embarrassing) slideshow of archive photos!
2007
Jacqueline Rousseau recently married Tommy Morphet. They met as undergrads at Caltech. Natalie Torban was one of Jacqueline’s bridesmaids.
2008
The Washington Post made a wonderful video featuring employee Emily Chow. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqAHf3gMhUo
2009
Chetan Vakkalagadda graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in May. After eight years in St. Louis, he is moving to Chicago in June to start his internal medicine residency at Northwestern.
Stephanie Guo and Steven Tran met up in Copenhagen, Denmark, while he was on a business trip. Stephanie said Steven saw her Instagram post and reached out.
D.J. Blickenstaff’s acting career continues to heat up. He will appear as “Arman” in three episodes of Netflix’s new series, “Dear White People,” which premiered April 28. Check him out in the trailer:
The show can be streamed on Netflix at https://www.netflix.com/title/80095698
Evan Maynard was the alumni speaker at this year’s Harker Research Symposium. Evan works at Blue Origin as a propulsion development engineer. His talk focused on making spaceflight more affordable, as well as the development of reusable rockets. Check him out on the video playlist:
2009
Neha Sabharwal, attending Harvard Law School, is an avid runner and ran this year’s Boston Marathon as part of the Girls on the Run team. Neha became involved with the nonprofit organization seven years ago while an undergraduate student at Duke University in North Carolina, where the organization is based. Here’s a nice article about her: https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/community/177-features/54955-
2010
Several Harker classmates helped Kevin Zhang celebrate his birthday. Pictured left to right are Albert Wu ’12, Stefan Eckhard ’10, Jackie Ho ’10, Kevin, James Feng ’10, Karthik Dhore ’11, Sean Morgan ’10 and Kyu Bok Lee ’08.
Priya Sathaye got engaged! After graduating from Cornell, Priya started grad school at the University of Pennsylvania. She and her fiancé, John, met while running out of their graduate student housing apartments when the fire alarm went off. They ran down 11 floors to the courtyard, and ended up cooking dinner together that evening. John is a Ph.D. student in the mechanical engineering department.
2011
James Seifert found himself on the stage once again with Cecilia Lang-Ree ’13 in Stanford University’s spring mainstage production, “The Wild Party.” James and Cecilia were in “Les Misérables” and “Pippin” together at Harker, and both were in Downbeat. Both will graduate from Stanford this year. Cecilia plans to continue at Stanford, working on her master’s in community health and prevention research.
2013
Pranav Sharma is the editor-in-chief of the Brown Journal of World Affairs (a journal similar to Foreign Affairs), which recently released an issue featuring scholarly work on global populism, India’s developing national identity, and art, identity and conflict (available for purchase at some Barnes & Noble locations).
Maverick McNealy is currently ranked No. 1 on the World Amateur Golf Rankings and is tied with Tiger Woods on the Stanford all-time wins list. He was named one of three finalists for The Ben Hogan Award, given annually to the top male college golfer. It’s the third year Maverick has been nominated; the winner will be named after our press time. He also recently received the 2017 Byron Nelson Award. Read all about it in Harker News: http://wp.me/pOeLQ-8hh
Ashvin Swaminathan was awarded a Soros Fellowship for New Americans, honoring the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. Ashvin was valedictorian and won a number of prizes while at Harker, including being named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search; he was also a John Near Endowment scholar.
Michael Amick was drafted by Major League Soccer team the Portland Timbers! Read all about it at
http://wp.me/pOeLQ-83J.
Izzy Connell and Ryan Mui got engaged to each other this spring! Huge congrats to both of them. The news emerged at the annual Keller Tour, so the whole group celebrated! Read more about it in the Keller Tour story on the next page.
2015
Sarah Bean will be interning this summer at the studio of Alexander Wang ’98. She will be working in the merchandising department at the Broadway office in Manhattan.
Ayush Midha is still winning debate awards – now as a Harvard student! He and his debate partner won the Rex Copeland Award, which is presented to the top college debate team in the nation. The duo won several invitational tournaments, giving them the best overall record of the year. The award was announced at the National Debate Tournament, held in March at the University of Kansas. Harker debate coaches Greg Achten and Jenny (Alme) Achten (yes, they recently married!) attended the tournament and were very proud to see Ayush receive the Copeland and make it to the quarterfinals of the tournament. “It is a ton of fun to watch our alums debate so successfully at the collegiate level,” said Jenny Achten. Greg Achten added that Ayush’s debate achievements are especially laudable alongside his rigorous pre-med course of study.
2016
Elisabeth Siegel has had her Harker Mitra grant paper, titled “Ideology through Subliminal Propaganda: A Critique of Portrayals of Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli and Western Online News Media during Operation Protective Edge,” published by Yale Review of International Studies! Read more at Harker news: http://wp.me/pOeLQ-8gh
Andrew Zhu ’14, a junior at NYU, was recently recognized with All-Academic honors by the United Volleyball Conference. This is the second year in a row that Zhu has received this award. This season, his team won its first UVC title, as well as made its first trip to the NCAA D3 volleyball tournament and finished the season ranked No. 7 in the nation. While at Harker, Zhu was a three-time captain and MVP. Congrats Andrew!
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine
1985
Judge John Owens visited Harker’s lower school to speak to third graders about his career and take questions from the students. See our profile of John on page 16.