Update – Mar. 27, 2015
Today, Andrew was the subject of a news story in ChinaDaily, and earlier this week was featured in a TV news segment on the Chinese language network Sinovision.
Mar. 10, 2015
Harker senior Andrew Jin won a first-place medal of distinction in the Global Good category in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. He is the first Harker student since 2006 to be named a winner in the competition and is one of three first-place winners in this year’s Intel STS, each of them claiming a prize of $150,000.
Jin, along with seniors Steven Wang and Rohith Kuditipudi, were named finalists in this year’s Intel STS in January, making Harker the only school nationwide with more than two finalists. Harker had 15 Intel semifinalists, the most of any school in the country.
Each year a set of seniors receives funds to research and write papers on topics of choice and this year’s array of papers continues the tradition of presenting both historical and societal issues covering a large spectrum.
Papers range from an insurance industry analysis to an exploration of music written under communist rule. Five papers were funded by endowments from the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, and four were funded by the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities. Each author had support from mentors, often including a teacher and a librarian, and each paper is unique, filled with careful research and worthy of attention. All papers can be found in PDF form at http://library.harker.org/upperlibrary/nearmitra.
Aadyot Bhatnagar, Mitra Scholar: “Using Antimalarial and Insecticide Resistance to Contextualize the Future of Malaria Control in Tanzania”
Bhatnagar has clearly mastered his subject, exploring the remedies used to control malaria now, their effectiveness and lifecycles, as well as the remedies available to combat mosquitos’ growing resistance to the usual insecticides. He is in good company in his efforts, as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed millions to malaria eradication through various methods.
The paper focuses, as do many treatments, on how to keep children from contracting malaria. Bhatnagar explores the medical ramifications, provision of, costs, and long- and short-term values of insecticides, and provides statistics on benefits and failure rates. In the end, he makes concrete recommendations to help better use insecticides: “This paper recommends exploiting the rise of accredited drug dispensing outlets (ADDOs), which are staffed by workers accredited through a dispensers’ course approved by the Tanzanian Food and Drugs Authority,” as opposed to supplying drugs through general stores.
Bhatnagar also notes the importance of keeping health care workers motivated as they test patients for malaria using rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs): “On the health care side, Tanzania’s Ministry of Health (MoH) currently provides a two-day, 16-hour RDT training program to provide health workers with the knowledge and skills to properly use RDTs in malaria treatment. … In order to maintain good clinical practices well after such training has been concluded, this paper looks to Kenya, where health workers are texted daily reminders of the necessity of RDT usage accompanied by motivational messages intended to reinforce the importance of following RDT test results in reducing the national prevalence of malaria.”
Ayush Midha, Near Scholar: “Blackout: The Case for Black Power in 1960s Liberation Politics”
Ayush Midha has produced a closely reasoned paper discussing the variance between governmental efforts to desegregate and to empower blacks, exploring both the non-effects of governmental intervention and the ill effects of ingrained attitudes in the entrenched press, and noting the missed perception of what black leaders were trying to accomplish above and beyond black militancy.
His paper retails a litany of false assumptions on the part of the white establishment on how best to help blacks break free of economic subservience. There was no lack of information on the subject; Midha’s research ranged from late-1960s articles in The Washington Post to scholarly papers written in the last few years.
Midha’s report is essentially an examination of attitudes from the late 1960s when “black power” was both a rallying cry and a serious effort by deeply committed black community members to make substantive changes in how black people lived. The Washington Post, despite flying in the face of the establishment its 1973 exposure of Watergate criminals, at this period, took a very conservative view of the overt and insistent efforts of black community leaders to force white people to begin to understand the depth of racial inequality.
Midha makes the case that white people are only going to help so much, willingly, even if they have the best motivation because, ultimately, their concern is with like populations, not with those outside their comfort zone. He noted that the Democratic Party was as culpable as any white-dominated group, taking on the black cause, but limiting itself to goals that can be checked off and showcased, rather than making a philosophical commitment to real change.
Midha notes that Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders recognized that change was glacial and set out to change the way blacks and whites perceived the change process in order to accelerate it. The BPP was characterized as advocating violent change and came under scrutiny that frustrated its adherents and eventually destroyed the party. Midha has written an important paper that will enlighten anyone interested in how black activism progressed and was stymied at various points by establishment organizations. For further perspective on Black Panther history, see the 2014 Near Endowment paper by Divya Kalidindi, “Watching and Wiretapping: An Analysis of the Implications of the FBI’s Illegal Counter-Intelligence Programs against the Black Panther Party during the 1960s.”
Maya Nandakumar, Mitra Scholar: “The Enchantment of the Habit”
Maya Nandakumar has delved into an interesting corner of Catholic history with her examination of the roots of Catholic female religious orders, and presented some interesting points on their establishment in the Middle Ages. Nandakumar asserts the orders were only reluctantly sanctioned by most religious leaders after having sprung from weaknesses within the church that developed during times of great stress.
Nandakumar notes the convents grew from a series of events including greater control by the church as its administration over European religious activity grew more complete, but then broke down under the great loss of both humanity and faith that occurred during plague times. Women were first stigmatized as descendants of Eve (naturally overlooking that men were descendants of the equally guilty Adam), thus unworthy to take an active role in the church.
As the plague broke down civic and religious barriers due to its impartiality in afflicting both the most and the least pious, a secondary, female icon emerged, that of Mary, the mother of Jesus, allowing, eventually, greater latitude to women in participating in the church. Establishing their rights in the face of a paternal and highly controlling church was a 400-year battle, however.
One of the first sanctioned orders, the Franciscan Clarists was formed to give women a sanctuary from a harsh world while providing them with a religious role. The Catholic Church has vacillated on many topics throughout its 2,000-year existence and nunneries were given mixed blessings by various popes as the decades ticked past.
One of the most interesting insights in the paper is how church leaders came to understand that convents were valuable additions to the church’s galaxy of orders. Nandakumar notes: “As the Church and its subjects began to see virginity as a mark of honor in addition to an instrument for control, a path was paved for the women’s religious movement. It is clear that one could not have existed without the other, for the impact of the former made the latter more feasible.” Followed by the assertion: “By absolutely condemning premarital sex, the Church provided only two distinct paths for women: either marriage or the convent.” We have long since moved beyond such narrow paths for women, but it is fascinating to read how the development of convents affected the Catholic Church, and thus a large proportion of the European population.
Karnika Pombra, Near Scholar: “The United Fruition: A Historical Analysis of the Motives for the 1954 U.S.-Backed Guatemalan Coup”
Karnika Pombra has written a fascinating vignette of how the United States used the Cold War for economic empire building. The crux of the report is that the Dulles brothers, Allen and John, respectively head of the CIA and secretary of state, used their political influence to get the CIA to trigger and support a coup in Guatemala in order to restore land to the United Fruit Company, on whose board of directors both men sat.
Pombra notes that John used his influence with then-President Dwight Eisenhower to convince him Guatemala was edging closer to full-fledged communism to get approval for the coup, but that the situation was far from black and white, and that the Guatemalan regime was not overtly communist. The regime was definitely socialist in action, having appropriated 234,000 acres of United Fruit Company’s 550,000 acres in Guatemala, a clear assault on an agricultural company’s ability to survive. Naturally, the United Fruit Company objected to this and, according to Pombra, used its influential board members to arrange for the 1954 coup.
It seems fairly obvious the U.S. was interfering with foreign politics, as all countries with the influence to do so will; but in this egregious example, two high-ranking U.S. government officials were also on the board of the company most economically affected by the supposed communism of the Guatemalan government. Pombra asserts the Guatemalan government of the time was not strictly communist and that Eisenhower, a hard-headed man used to the machinations of both his own and foreign governments, was convinced by his secretary of state that the coup was necessary for national security. This was the era where workers everywhere were overthrowing dictatorial governments with armed assistance from the Soviet Union and Red China, and Guatemala appeared to be another state about to come under communist control.
The U.S. had already fought a hot war in Korea to stymie communism and went on to fight communism around the world, notably in Cuba and Vietnam, instances of cold and hot wars meant to curb the efforts of a shadowy, reconstituted Comintern that threatened democracy. All of the communism vs. democracy instances during the Cold War era will someday be examined as a whole, through the prism of time, and perhaps then a more rational and scholarly summary of the value of the U.S. effort to curb communism will emerge. Until then, there are travesties like the Guatemalan coup juxtaposed with heroic efforts like saving South Korea from communism to ponder.
Apoorva Rangan, Near Scholar: “The Tet Offensive and the MACV’s Information Defensive: An Analysis of Limitations to Watchdog Journalism in the Vietnam War (1964-68)”
Apoorva Rangan has written a masterful analysis of war reporting in the early years of the Vietnam conflict. In it, she asserts that the war coverage was characterized by confused reporting policies implemented unevenly, with plenty of opportunity to circumvent recognized methods of transmitting news reports, which created a sort of chaos in perception of the war. Ultimately, reports on specific activities, some bordering on criminal, by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam contributed heavily to the public rejection of both official reports of progress and the value of continuing the war.
Although the defense department tried to maintain an air of candor to allow reporters to tell the stories in Vietnam as they saw fit, the war was being so poorly run that news reports antagonized both the president in Washington and the high command in Vietnam. As things went from bad to worse in terms of achieving U.S. war aims, civilian and military leaders tried to modify reporting through various means. Unfortunately for those leaders, but ultimately fortunately for our country as a whole, reporters could file stories via Singapore or Hong Kong civilian channels that told greater truths than those stories that had to be entrusted to the military communication system for transmission to the United States. The sad truth is, many reporters toed the line; they used the military press releases as the basis for reporting on the war, thus deluding much of the public into believing the Vietnam conflict was being fought with honor and success. It was up to reporters — who could have easily lost their jobs if company executives disagreed with their methods or reportage — to tell the humbling, embarrassing, shameful truth of how the war was being fought.
Perhaps the oddest facet of news coverage was that the U.S. really did try to let reporters do their job at first, then tried to limit what was being said through various, ultimately ineffective means, while never implementing the hard and fast censorship that has characterized war coverage before and after Vietnam.
This paper was exceptionally well-written. Rangan chose a topic narrow enough for her paper, yet presented enough detail and surrounding history to contextualize her report. War reporting has evolved to be far more encompassing and truthful through the efforts of individuals, sometimes backed by their organizations, and that evolution began in Vietnam.
Agata Sorotokin, Mitra Scholar: “The Truth Beyond Words: A Muisco-Historical Analysis of Selections from Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shotakovich’s Compositions Under the Stalinist Regime”
This careful study of the life of Dmitri Dimitrivich Shostakovich, juxtaposed against his times, illustrates through musical analysis, anecdotes and historical context, his unswerving determination to maintain his artistic freedom even under one of the most repressive regimes of modern times.
Using the above elements, Sorotokin has woven a story that goes beyond even Shostakovich’s struggle to illustrate the struggle all honest artists faced under the limits imposed by political repression under the greatest murderer of modern times, Josef Stalin.
Sorotokin focused on three Shostakovich pieces – an opera, a symphony and a chamber piece –to show how the composer did his best to follow the precepts of socialist Russia while striving to maintain his artistic integrity. Alas, there was no room in that country, in that era, for real personal integrity, only for self-delusion or naked conformity to avoid the knout.
Shostakovich tried hard to reconcile his integrity with political repression, but the inconsistencies of the Soviet system, deep corruption on high vs. mass idealism below meant that integrity in all the arts was caught between the vagaries of untutored leaders passing judgment and the fickle praise of the masses who, having no real choice, swung to and fro, for and against, artists as the regime clasped them to its bosom or metaphorically pushed their faces in to the mud.
Shostakovich fell out of favor, then back in, and the pieces Sorotokin uses to illustrate the composer’s artistic path follow that pattern, with his symphony being praised, his opera reviled and, following another cycle of rehabilitation and rejection, survival after the death of Stalin. After a government-instigated cultural visit to New York where he felt forced to criticize fellow composer, Igor Stravinsky, Sorotokin notes “Shostakovich began to write his Fourth String Quartet, which he did not even attempt to have performed until after Stalin’s death. Placing the piece of chamber music ‘in the drawer,’ he was unafraid to express his ‘authentic’ emotions in the work.”
Sorotokin clearly admires Shostakovich and by the end of the paper, it is hard not to do so. He repeatedly jeopardized his freedom supporting others and he repeatedly tried to be a good citizen by volunteering for duty during World War II when Russians were dying in heaps to keep the German Army at bay.
Sorotokin includes several passages from Shostakovich’s works pointing out how he made the music tell his story of life, including a protest against anti-semitism, which was a reoccurring theme in Russia. Sorotokin finishes leaving readers with a solid feeling for Shostakovich’s efforts to produce his incredible music under extremely trying historical circumstances.
Vedant Thyagaraj, Near Scholar: “Increasing the Efficiency of United States Healthcare: Addressing Adverse Selection in the Health Insurance Market Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”
Vedant Thyagaraj has produced an impressive study and analysis of U.S. health insurance that codifies all the issues thinking people have come to recognize as wrong with our health care insurance system. Two of the biggest issues that consumers face are listed by Thyagaraj early on in the document:
“Defensive medicine, where doctors prescribe medical treatments that are not necessarily in the patient’s best interest but protect the doctor from potential lawsuits, has also become more common and has resulted in increased medical costs, which indirectly raises insurance premiums. The flip-side of this argument is physician-induced demand; doctors and other medical practitioners will prescribe treatments for patients that are superfluous and unnecessary, in order to increase their own profits.”
Thyagaraj says these problems are due to information asymmetry, and notes information symmetry has two distinct market failures: moral hazard and adverse selection. He focuses on adverse selection for most of his paper (although an exploration of moral hazard sounds very interesting!).
“Adverse selection has affected the health insurance market for many decades. As no prior economic solution has succeeded, this market failure has been elevated to the most important health care economic inefficiency in the market for health insurance. Adverse selection occurs due to information asymmetry between customers and insurance providers and is typically characterized by high-risk patients increasing insurance premiums so significantly that lower risk customers drop out of the market.”
He went on to note that “When high-risk individuals join an insurance plan seeking medical coverage, the insurance provider compensates for the increased risk by raising premiums. However, many low-risk individuals, who were previous subscribers to this insurance plan, may find that the new premiums are not justified (and) terminate their health insurance plans.” With the healthy insured dropping out, insurance companies then raise the rates of those still in the plan to cover costs. This spiral is an inevitable outcome of adverse selection that could eventually “lead to the collapse of the insurance pooling mechanism,” Thyagaraj added.
Fortunately, Thyagaraj found there are workable solutions to the problem, one of which is universal insurance coverage, instituted by the government, which “could help reduce adverse selection by maintaining a balance between high-risk and low-risk individuals in insurance population pools (and) the recent Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seems to meet these requirements, giving it solid theoretical potential to defeat the health insurance market’s greatest economic failure.”
This is a complex paper, but it addresses an issue of concern to virtually every U.S. resident. It makes great reading for those interested in the issues – thoughtful, clear language, good case studies and rational conclusions.
Felix Wu, Near Scholar: “Straight Outta Compton: Hip-Hop and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots”
Felix Wu has written a paper on a topic not familiar to many readers, but one that should be taken as a manifesto of these times where police violence against black men has become one of the most important topics our society can address. The paper analyses the expressions of anger coming from the black community in reaction to repeated incidents of black men dying at the hands of police when there is no discernable threat from the victim. What makes the paper particularly interesting is that Wu examined rap or hip-hop lyrics for what they present to listeners about the grief, frustration and anger coming from the black community as they continue to fight what can easily be defined as institutional lynching.
Wu was able to source many songs, covering a sad 21 years of racial assassination, starting with the Rodney King beating in 1991. He tells the story for those too young to remember it, but the story needs no retelling for most adults, as it was a seminal event in recognizing that black men are beaten and killed weekly – if not daily – in the United States. The beating itself remains deeply shaming, and each incident following, up to the very recent death of a black man in Baltimore police custody from a severed spine, add to that shame for those who are in a position to do one of two things: use our political voices and vote to effect change for those who do not have the votes or political savvy to do so on their own.
Wu spends some time discussing the effect of crack cocaine on the black population and how rap music addressed it, and how it ties into perceptions that blacks are to blame for their own problems. He also discusses changes in gang activity and how rap musicians made multiple efforts to speak to their fellow black men to illustrate how black-on-black violence needed to be addressed within their community. Wu has written a fascinating paper on how the black community’s music has affected it politically in a number of ways and, although many may be generally aware that the music addresses some of the most important issues in the black community, this paper lays it out in black and white, as it were: We need to change how we all, and especially the police, treat black males if we want them to succeed in our society.
Stanley Xie, Mitra Scholar: “Understanding Gender Differences in Depression: The Evolution in Our Understanding for Rumination and Co-Rumination in the Midst of the Social Media Revolution”
Stanley Xie has written a wonderful paper on depression and everyone should read it. Xie examines the relationship between depression and social media interactions and, although he speaks directly to gender differences, and notes that women are roughly twice as likely to suffer from depression, the crux of the paper applies to all since depression affects those around the depressed person, as well.
Xie verbalized some key factors affecting an individual’s state of mind that, when read, seem obvious, but are so entrenched they are easy to overlook. He repeatedly notes that women form closer friendships than men and that those friendships have an ambiguous impact on depression since talking about a problem can help, but dwelling on it can hurt. Here is a highly telling excerpt from his paper:
“Interestingly, they found that friends who co-ruminate with each other, despite their supportive attitudes, engage in more problem talk, possibly explaining the discrepancy between close friendships and increased depressive symptoms. These results support Stone et al. (2011), who found that co-rumination statistically increased the chance for an individual to be depressed and likely serves as one of the driving factors bringing about the gender differences beginning in adolescence. Interestingly, Rose et al. (2007) and Star and Davila (2009), also found that co-rumination occurs in both genders, but female co-rumination contributes more often to depressive behavior, a trend that appears independent of their higher rates of rumination. Because females form closer friendships, they are more likely to open up about and rehash their problems with their friends, contributing to their depressive symptoms.”
Xie does address the issues raised around depression with social media and his analysis seems so logical that its value is in its simplicity. Overtly, communication via social media isn’t as complete as face-to-face due to the lack of facial and body cues transmitted, but it turns out that the sheer volume and number of channels, plus human coping systems allow for pretty good subtextual communication after all.
Xie notes: “The fact is that although nonverbal cues in face-to-face communication may not be present during online conversations, there are so many different ways of communicating through social media than in person. For example, adolescents can take a few ‘snaps’ for their friends, sharing small tidbits of their day with their friends, join a large group chat to continue socializing, and then video chat other friends. Thus, the lack of cues is made up for through the sheer number of different ways teens can present themselves online.”
This exceptionally well-written paper deals with a complex subject, one that strikes home with every thinking person since depression is so pervasive.
The 2015-16 endowment recipients, all, as usual, rising seniors, have been selected!
John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund: Zarek Drozda, Shannon Hong, Jasmine Liu, Sadhika Malladi and Sahana Narayanan.
Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities: Kaitlyn Gee, Kavya Ramakrishnan, Elisabeth Siegel and Natalie Simonian.
We’ll be looking for some great papers from these students in a year! Go Researching Eagles!
Heartiest congratulations to 12 students who have committed to playing their sports when they go on to college! At a lunchtime ceremony for the athletes, parents, coaches and others today, athletic director Dan Molin said, “These students have received admission to their college of choice because of their work ethic, athleticism and their ability to balance their training with the academics of Harker.”
“These are all outstanding student athletes. At high schools across the country, signing ceremonies such as this are performed to recognize these special young people. This group of seniors have represented Harker exceptionally well over the years and we want to thank them and wish them well as the represent their new schools,” Molin concluded.
Here are our 2015 committed athletes:
Jeremiah Anderson (Westmont College, soccer)
Aadyot Bhatnagar (California Institute of Technology, water polo)
Billy Bloomquist (California Institute of Technology, water polo)
Shreya Dixit (Yale University, volleyball)
Shrish Dwivedi (Duke University, golf)
Keanu Forbes (San Jose City College, football)
Aaron Huang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, swimming)
Registration for Harker’s 2015 summer programs is now open, giving K-grade 5, middle school and high school students a huge variety of summertime opportunities for academics, sports and just plain fun!
For students in K-grade 5, Harker’s Summer Camp+ offers a comprehensive program of morning academics and afternoon activities. Core Focus for grades 1-5 presents a variety of classes in math and language arts. For grade 1-5 students interested in the literary arts, Learning Opportunities in Literature (LOL) is a unique experience built around a central theme. Camp+’s youngest participants can enjoy a unique learning experience at KinderCamp, which includes language and math instruction in specially designed classrooms, followed by age-appropriate afternoon activities. New this year is an art and music program for grades 2-5, which will include an artist’s studio and an orchestra, a rock band and songwriting workshops.
Students in grades 6-12 will find a wealth of options at Harker’s Summer Institute, whether they are looking to get a head start on the school year or simply enhance their learning experiences outside the usual curriculum. Middle and high school students will have access to several for-credit courses in subjects such as algebra, geometry and economics. For-credit elective courses in programming and advanced programming are available to students in grades 9-12. Students interested in enhancing their knowledge of a specific subject will find opportunities in math, science, writing and more through the Summer Institute’s enrichment courses.
Harker’s world-renowned English Language Institute (ELI) brings top-level English instruction to international students every year. ELI is tailored to many skill levels and is designed to offer a nurturing environment to students looking to improve their language skills or prepare for admission to American boarding schools and English-speaking international schools. Small class sizes and experienced teachers help students develop speaking, reading and writing skills to ensure their readiness.
For student athletes, Harker’s sports camps are a great way to learn a new sport, prepare for an upcoming season or simply have fun on the field or in the gym. Harker’s experienced coaches will conduct camps for basketball, soccer, volleyball, water polo, wrestling and TRX training in a fun and positive environment. This year, The Harker School will also host a weeklong San Francisco Giants Baseball Camp at the middle school campus.
Finally, the Harker Swim School helps participants fully enjoy one of summer’s quintessential activities. Available to swimmers of virtually every age and skill level, the swim school teaches everything from basic strokes to advanced competitive swimming techniques, all at the beautiful Singh Aquatic Center on Harker’s upper school campus.
For more information about Harker’s summer programs, including schedules and pricing, visit http://summer.harker.org.
Today Society for Science & the Public announced that Harker seniors Andrew Jin, Rohith Kuditipudi and Steven Wang were named finalists in the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search (STS), making Harker the only school in the country with three finalists. This also breaks Harker’s previous record of two finalists, set in 2011. Harker has now produced a total of nine finalists since it began participating in the Intel STS during the 2005-06 school year, when Yi Sun ’06 took second place nationally.
Jin, Kuditipudi and Wang were among 15 semifinalists from Harker – the most of any school in the nation – who were named earlier this month. They now join 40 other high school students from across the United States who will travel to Washington, D.C., in March for the final stage of the competition, where more than $1 million in cash prizes will be awarded.
While in Washington, the finalists will have the opportunity to demonstrate their research to key figures in the scientific community and national leadership. Winners will be announced at a special invitation-only gala at the National Building Museum on March 10.
Society for Science & the Public (SSP) announced today that 15 Harker seniors were named semifinalists in the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search, more than any other school in the country. In 2012, Harker had a record 11 semifinalists, so this year represents a new high watermark!
“Inquiry, curiosity and persistence embody the culture of The Harker School,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “The development of scientific thinking and effective communication of discoveries is part of instruction in all of the subjects we teach. This is a significant achievement for our school, yet it is a natural outcome of the daily work of our dedicated preschool-through-grade 12 faculty and our outstanding students. When I think of the diversity of research questions that our students posed and the significance of their findings, I am left with so much hope that our next generation will find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.”
More than 1,800 students from 460 high schools entered this year’s Intel Science Talent Search; from those entrants, 300 semifinalists were selected. Each semifinalist will receive a $1,000 cash prize and is eligible to become a finalist in this year’s contest. An additional $1,000 is awarded to each semifinalist’s school. Finalists receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the final stage of the competition, where more than $1 million in prizes will be awarded. SSP will announce the 40 national finalists in this year’s competition on Jan. 21.
This year’s semifinalists and their project titles are:
Shikhar Dixit (“Immunomodulation by Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Line ARPE-19”)
Andrew Jin (“A Machine Learning Framework to Identify Selected Variants in Regions of Recent Adaptation”)
Rohith Kuditipudi (“Bayesian Time Series Analysis of Liver Disease Progression”)
David Lin (“Characterizing Gravitationally Bound Halo Structures in Cosmological Dark Matter Simulations”)
Cindy Liu (“Characterizing Novel Binders as Tools for Understanding Chloride Transport Mechanisms”)
Neil Movva (“How do Teeth Grow? Characterizing the Morphogenesis of the Periodontal Ligament through Complementary Biomechanical and Histological Analysis”)
Pranav Reddy (“Differential Motif Discovery to Isolate Associated Sequences and Relevant Transcription Factors for Alzheimer’s in a Mouse Model”)
Anokhi Saklecha (“The Utilization of RGD-coated Gold Nanoprisms and Optical Coherence Tomography to Target alphavbeta3 integrin: A Novel Method to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells”)
Nikash Shankar (“A Potential Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease: Encapsulation of Curcumin within Polymeric PLGA-PEG Nanoparticles Protects Neuro2A Cells from Beta-Amyloid Induced Cytotoxicity and Improves Bioavailability”)
Sriram Somasundaram (“A Novel Design and Evaluation of Chitosan Nanoparticle Ocular Drug Delivery System Using Protein-Ligand Docking Simulations and pH Dependent Corneal Permeation”)
Kailas Vodrahalli (“Transporting Solar Energy Through Optical Waveguides for Concentrated Solar Power Applications”)
Steven Wang (“Computer-Aided Genomic Characterization of Colorectal Cancer Driver Genes for Oncogenic Transformation of Primary Colon Organoids”)
Menghua Wu (“Characteristics of Drug Combination Therapy in Oncology by Analyzing Clinical Trial Data on ClinicalTrials.gov”)
Leo Yu (“A Novel Algorithm to Unify CMIP5 Ensemble Climate Models for Optimal Climate Projections”)
Andrew Zhang (“The Dearth of Lithium-Rich Stars in Globular Clusters”)
The Science Talent Search, launched by SSP in 1942 in a partnership with Westinghouse, has since become one of the country’s most respected science contests for high school seniors. It has been sponsored by Intel since 1998. Congratulations to students, mentors and teachers, and good luck in the next round!
Kudos to inspiring young social entrepreneur Suraya Shivji, grade 12, who created an altruistic app to raise money to help African orphans become self-sufficient.
Shivji taught herself to program iPhone gaming apps and get them posted on Apple’s app store. She is now using them, along with a crowd-funding campaign she began this year on her website, Rizikitoto, as a source of revenue for the needy orphans.
The website has generated about $1,300 for the children at a Ugandan orphanage, Bright Futures Home, with money from each app designated for a particular child. The orphanage program is further supported by Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit group that seeks to close the gender gap in technology and engineering.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) was the real winner of a students versus faculty/staff basketball game held during a long lunch on Nov.12 in the upper school gym.
The Hoops & Scoops charity basketball game was jointly sponsored by the Harker Disability Awareness Group and the Harker DECA chapter. During the game, members of the two student clubs scooped and served up delicious ice cream sundaes to onlookers. One scoop cost $2, while three scoops went for $5.Proceeds from the event, which totaled $405, benefited the MDA.
“We chose to support the MDA because they are DECA’s largest charitable partner,” said Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program. “Students won, 72-59. But the real winner was MDA.”
The MDA is the world’s leading nonprofit health organization sponsoring research into the causes and effective treatments for neuromuscular diseases. MDA research grants currently support more than 250 projects worldwide.
Prior to the event, upper school students, faculty and staff were invited to sign up for basketball teams that were divided by grade levels. With 10 players per grade, freshman played the first quarter, sophomores played the second, juniors played the third and seniors played fourth.
“We wanted an activity that would involve the whole school and have it be interactive and fun. Having a friendly basketball competition seemed like a great way to do that. Being that it was a physical activity, we were able to truly embrace the MDA’s mission of ‘make a muscle; make a difference.’ We hope it to be the start of an annual tradition,” Glass said.
The 2014 Siemens Competition Math : Science : Technology semifinalists were just announced and 408 national semifinalists and 97 regional finalists were named. This year 13 students from The Harker School were among the 60 California semifinalists, representing 22 percent of the statewide total. In addition, four of those students were among the 15 named regional finalists, representing 27 percent of the regional total. More Harker students were named in both categories than any other school in California. Congratulations to the students and faculty for this outstanding achievement.
Harker’s regional finalists and their projects are:
Jason Chu, grade 12: “Studying the Nature of Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei and Globular Clusters”
Vineet Kosaraju, grade 11: “Designing Tertiary Structures with RNA Motifs in Order to Optimize 3-Dimensional RNA Folds in a Massive Open Laboratory”
Jonathan Ma and Sadhika Malladi, both grade 11: “Systematic Rational Identification of Sex-Linked Molecular Alterations and Therapies in Cancer”
These four students have each earned a $1,000 scholarship and will move on to the regional competition, held next month at the California Institute of Technology, for a chance to appear at the national finals in Washington, D.C., in December, where students will compete for up to $100,000 in scholarship prizes.
This year’s other semifinalists are:
Andrew Jin, grade 12 (“A Machine Learning Framework to Identify Selected Variants in Regions of Recent Adaptation”)
Nitya Mani, grade 12 (“Characterizing the n-Division Points of Genus-0 Curves through Straightedge and Compass Constructions”)
Neil Movva, grade 12 (“How Do Teeth Grow? Characterizing the Morphogenesis of the Periodontal Ligament through Complementary Biomechanical and Histological Analysis”)
Roshni Pankhaniya, grade 12 (“Analyzing first-Trimester MicroRNA as a Marker for Assessing Adverse Pregnancy Risk”)
Ankita Pannu, grade 12 (“Mining Online Cancer Support Groups: Improving Healthcare through Social Data”)
Nikash Shankar, grade 12 (“A Potential Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease: Encapsulation of Curcumin within Polymeric PLGA-PEG Nanoparticles Protects Neuro2A Cells from Beta-Amyloid Induced Cytotoxicity and Improves Bioavailability”)
Alice Wu, grade 11 (“Kinematic Anomalies in the Rotation Curves of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies”)
Rishabh Chandra, grade 11, and Venkat Sankar, grade 10 (“Managing the Impact of Infrastructure Projects on Endangered Species: A Stochastic Simulation Approach Based on Population Viability Analysis”)
It was with tremendous gratitude that Chris Nikoloff, head of school, announced on Oct. 13 the exciting news that the Harker community contributed just over $10 million in gifts and pledges, meeting the deadline for the historic Rothschild matching gift challenge.
The entire Harker community is enormously grateful to Harker parents Jeff and Marieke Rothschild, who matched $10 million in gifts, essentially doubling every contribution made between April 21 and Oct. 12. The $30 million capital campaign rose from just under $5 million on April 21 to just over $25 million on Oct. 12. This intensive, six-month challenge inspired many in the Harker community to act.
The challenge was met with outright gifts to the capital campaign combined with funds from a second matching gift fund established by Harker’s Board of Trustees and Board of Fellows. Trustees and fellows, who already contribute their time and unmatchable expertise, were key to preserving the much-needed annual support of our programs while inspiring the community to contribute to the events center.
There currently remains approximately $1.3 million in the trustees and fellows gift fund to be matched, and while the capital giving challenge has been met, families and alumni who have not yet had a chance to participate in the campaign can still have their annual giving gifts matched to double the impact of their contributions.
“The entire Harker community is especially indebted to Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, and his advancement team, whose commitment to the children was evident in their work,” said Nikoloff in an email following the school’s annual Harvest Festival, where several hundred donations were logged in just a few short hours, putting the fund over its goal.