Last week, senior Ishaan Mantripragada was named the Central Coast Section Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The four-year soccer player was named WBAL All-League and WBAL Forward of the Year and was a valued member of the 2020 CCS championship team. He was also recognized for volunteering for Kicks Against Cancer, participating in the Synopsys Science & Technology Championship and receiving a 2020 President’s Gold Volunteer Service Award, all while maintaining strong academic performance. Mantripragada was one of several athletes honored at a special luncheon on Tuesday.
In other CCS news, six Harker athletics teams were named winners of 2021-22 Spring Season Scholastic Championship Team Awards last week. These awards recognize the top five varsity teams from each sport that have maintained the highest collective GPA in their respect sports during the spring athletic season. The boys baseball, boys volleyball, girls swimming, boys tennis, boys track and field and girls track and field teams were all selected to receive this award.
The American Volleyball Coaches Association named Jarrett Anderson ’19, who currently plays for Springfield College, their NCAA Division III Men’s National Player of the Year last week. A first-team NVA/AVCA All-American for three straight seasons, Anderson was a major factor in Springfield’s appearance in the NCAA Division III National Championship semifinals this year. This season he recorded 264 kills, 107 digs, 78 aces and 46 blocks.
At last month’s Bay Area Mathematics Olympiad, Harker won second place team awards at the BAMO-8 and BAMO-12 levels for middle and high school students, respectively. Team awards are determined by comparing the sums of the top three scores from each team. Harker also took second place in the BAMO-12 participation awards, which are awarded to schools with the most students who scored at least seven points.
Harker students performed very well individually. In BAMO-8, eighth grader Lily Shi scored 30 out of a possible 35 points and eighth graders Caden Ruan, Kallie Wang and seventh grader Axel Szolusha each received an honorable mention for scoring between 27 to 29 points. At the BAMO-12 level, ninth grader Aarush Vailaya scored a perfect 35 points, while junior Sally Zhu scored 32. Catherine Li, Ethan Liu and Rohan Ramkumar received honorable mentions for scoring 25 to 31 points.
Each BAMO consists of five essay questions that must be solved within a four-hour time limit.
Mindy Truong, grade 8, was recently named a second place winner in American Protégé’s spring 2022 Music Talent Competition for her piano performance of “Presto agitato” from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14. As one of the higher placing competitors, Truong has been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall during American Protégé’s 2023 season.
Young musicians from around the world submit video auditions to American Protégé each year in a variety of categories. Earlier this year, Harker students Christine and James Tao (grades 7 and 5, respectively) also were invited to perform for the 2023 season.
Last weekend, the Harker Research Symposium welcomed attendees to the upper school campus for the first time since 2019. This annual celebration of the sciences, organized by the students of Women in STEM, invites the Harker community to view presentations and hear talks by Harker students and experts in a variety of fields, as well as get a glance at the exciting innovations on the horizon.
In her morning welcome address, science department chair and symposium founder Anita Chetty remarked that more than 60 poster presentations were being given by Harker middle and upper school students, a new record for the event. Attendees spent much of the day perusing the spaces in the athletic center and Rothschild Performing Arts Center where the presentations were being hosted.
The theme of this year’s symposium, “STEM Will Save Us,” dealt with the many ways that STEM disciplines are responding to current and upcoming challenges. Kamini Varma, VP of genetic testing solutions R&D at Thermo Fisher, was the first morning keynote speaker. Her talk, titled “The COVID-19 Diaries,” covered her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic working in molecular diagnostics. It was a project that began not long after shelter-in-place orders were enacted, which Varma described as feeling like a diary or book. “I started to put together the COVID-19 diaries actually in April of 2020, when I was asked to present a talk, she said. “I had no clue that two years later, we would still be adding new chapters.”
Artificial intelligence was a major topic at this symposium, with Helm.ai demonstrating its self-driving software outside Nichols Hall for much of the day, while Harker’s AI Club gave a presentation on ethical and unethical uses of AI in the present and beyond. Also discussing this topic was the second morning keynote speaker, Yanbing Li, senior VP of engineering at Aurora, developers of the Aurora Driver self-driving system that has vehicles in testing in the Bay Area, Pittsburgh and Dallas. “Self-driving technology has been the pursuit of our generation,” she said. “It always feels so close, but it also feels still far away.” Li’s presentation covered the ways Aurora’s technology is addressing safety concerns while also bringing self-driving technology closer to being a fully realized commercial product.
At a special alumni panel, Steven Botte ‘82, Ashley Morishige ‘07 (via Zoom), Amy Rorabaugh ‘10, Simar Bajaj ‘20, Daniza Rodriguez ‘13, Jasmine Wiese ‘20 and Allison Sommers ’21 covered important topics in diversity, equity and inclusion, including changes that must be made in corporate culture to increase diversity, how the Harker community helped and supported them in affirming their identities and what improvements the community can make for a more equitable environment. Each of the panelists were given the opportunity to talk at length about their unique experiences and how to approach conversations about race, sexuality and gender identity.
Senan Ebrahim ’08 and Hassaan Ebrahim ’11, this year’s alumni keynote speakers, gave a presentation on their journey to co-founding Hikma Health, a nonprofit that provides free health data systems to organizations providing health care to refugees. Their path included partnerships with groups around the world and engaging with their network to find people who could help build the technology. The primary goal of Hikma Health is to provide readily accessible and up-to-date information to clinicians so that they can offer refugees “the kind of personalized care that they truly deserve as compared to what we had been observing routinely on the ground,” Senan said.
Throughout the day, guests visited the exhibitor area where companies including Google, Nvidia and Microsoft demonstrated some of their products. They also made their way to the Nichols Hall rotunda, where several stations of fun activities were set up for the younger science enthusiasts in attendance.
The first afternoon keynote speaker was Hari Mix, assistant professor of environmental studies and sciences at Santa Clara University and an experienced climber with a total of five months on Mt. Everest. Mix surveyed the various environmental, social and economic changes that have been brought to the area around Mt. Everest, as well as possible solutions to the problems posed by human waste and climate change, including those that have affected the people indigenous to the area of Nepal where the mountain stands. Mix, whose current goal is to reach the summit of Mt. Everest without the assistance of supplemental oxygen, advised the students in the audience to learn to appreciate the journey. “My lesson for The Harker School students today is to really focus on the process more than the achievement or the outcome,” he said.
Speaking last for the day was Upendra Mardikar, chief security officer at Snap Finance, who advised guests on how to be “Cyber Smart,” summarizing the different types of security risks presented by the growing presence of smart devices in our daily lives. These include threats from online predators, cyberbullying and the acquisition and sale of personal information. He also discussed some proper and improper ways to respond to these risks. Despite the many threats people should be cognizant of, Mardikar advised caution, not panic. “The idea is not to scare you,” he said. “Don’t be scared, just be careful.”
This story was submitted by Harker speech and debate chair Jenny Achten.
Last weekend, senior Anshul Reddy won the prestigious National Debate Coaches Association Championship, one of the big three speech and debate championships attended by teams from across the United States. Reddy had a perfect record in preliminary rounds and lost just one ballot in elimination rounds. The national topic was “Resolved: The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust.” Senior Deven Shah, junior Muzzi Khan and sophomore Kabir Buch also qualified for Lincoln-Douglas elimination rounds. Junior Carol Wininger and sophomores Max Xing, Sasha Masson and Adrian Liu represented Harker in public forum debate elimination rounds, debating the desirability of organic agriculture.
This story was submitted by middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni.
A delegation of 19 middle school Latin students kicked off spring break with the Junior Classical League’s second (and hopefully last) Virtual State Latin Convention. Some students chose to attend virtually together, welcoming a group of upper school students to the library to attend assemblies, workshops and competitions over Zoom. It was the first visit to the Union campus for some of the upper school students.
The middle school delegation took third place in Spirit with seventh grader Megha Unny’s poster and song parody, titled “The Twelve Days of Saturnalia.” Other school awards included first place for Scrapbook (Chelsea Xie, historian, grade 7) and third for T-shirt Design (Raeanne Li, grade 7).
The MS1 certamen (quiz bowl) team of sixth graders Avi Gupta, Rory Hu, Zahra Syed and Lucas Yuan placed first in the state. The MS3 team – eighth graders Aidan Okyar, Kairui Sun and Rahul Sundaresan – placed second in their division, and the MS2 team – seventh graders Ameera Ramzan, Sanjith Senthil, Vera Sorotokin and Chelsea Xie – lost a heartbreaking tie breaker for third place and a seat in the final round, but fourth in the state is nothing to sneeze at!
Several upper school students will serve on the California JCL state board for the 2022-23 school year: sophomore Trisha Iyer as historian and junior Tiffany Chang as Nuntius editor. In addition, junior Rupert Chen was approved by the state to run for national first vice president.
Last but not least, Raeanne Li’s opinion piece for The Eagle Gazette on the need for students to respect each other’s choices for language study won Best School-Affiliated Media in the National Junior Classical League Publicity Contest for the month of March, with the following notification from the NJCL:
“Thank you for your submission for the Publicity Contest. This was a wonderful article, and we were moved by the message.”
Individual awards for the middle school delegates are listed below:
MS1/Grade 6:
Avi Gupta: Second in Daily Life, third in Derivatives, second in Pentathlon
Rory Hu: First in Derivatives, first in Reading Comprehension, first in Vocabulary, third in Dramatic Interpretation
Charlene Li: Fourth in Grammar, third in Mythology
Zahra Syed: First in Geography, second in Derivatives, first in Mythology
Lucas Yuan: Second in Geography, first in Grammar, first in Pentathlon, second in Reading Comprehension
MS2/Grade 7:
Shamik Khowala: Second in Daily Life, fourth in Mottoes; third in Reading Comprehension, first in Vocabulary, third in Dramatic Interpretation, second in Sight Reading
Lily Peng: Second in Classical Art, third in Geography, fourth in Daily Life, third in Grammar
Ameera Ramzan: Third in E-lympika Sit-ups, third in Daily Life, second in Grammar, second in Roman History, second in Reading Comprehension, third in Vocabulary, second in Latin Oratory
Vera Sorotokin: First in Vocabulary, first in Mottoes
Abby Wang: First in Daily Life, third in Derivatives, fourth in Reading Comprehension
Chelsea Xie: Third in Derivatives, third in Reading Comprehension, second in Dramatic Interpretation
Demi Zheng: Fourth in Derivatives
MS3/Grade 8:
Marisa Masoni: Third in Mythology, first in Painting, first in Mosaic
Aidan Okyar: First in Classical Art, first in Roman History, first in Mottoes, second in Mythology
Kairui Sun: First in Derivatives, first in Grammar, first in Reading Comprehension
Rahul Sundaresan: Second in Roman History, first in Mythology
Jonathan Szeto: First in Geography, second in Reading Comprehension
Late last month, this year’s Near-Mitra scholars held virtual salons, which consisted of a presentation summarizing each scholar’s research followed by a Q&A session. Each of the student scholars was mentored by faculty members who received grants from the Chen Lin Family Endowment. The salons were well-attended, averaging 35 people for each talk and 250 overall.
Salons were held on three separate days, starting on March 22 with Caden Lin’s presentation on the International Monetary Fund’s role in destabilizing Sierra Leone’s economy, which eventually led to civil war. Lin, mentored by speech and debate chair Jenny Achten and upper school librarian Meredith Cranston, began with Sierra Leone’s independence from Britain in 1961. When the country’s initial economic strength had begun to wane, the IMF offered aid, initially with promising results. However, Lin pointed out, IMF also devalued Sierra Leone’s currency and made its exports cheaper, leading to economic disaster over the next two decades.
Three more salons were held on March 24, the first of which featured Michelle Liu, who analyzed American painter Mary Cassatt’s use of techniques inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, a style known as ukiyo-e. Liu, whose mentors were Cranston and upper school history teacher Donna Gilbert, noted Cassatt’s affinity for mother-and-child themes, pointing out the similarities of her renderings of children and those of Japanese woodblock artist Kitagawa Utamaro. Liu also highlighted Cassatt’s use of domestic scenes, which reflected prevailing viewpoints on gender in the late 19th century.
Senior Dawson Chen, mentored by Cranston and upper school history teacher Katy Rees, analyzed the films of documentarian Pare Lorentz and their impact on documentary filmmaking. Famously known as “FDR’s filmmaker,” Lorentz made several films to promote then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Chen demonstrated how in works such as “The Plow that Broke the Plains,” Lorentz documented the over-farming that eventually led to the Dust Bowl, powerfully advocating for the restoration of the land.
Under the mentorship of upper school history teacher Chris Gatto and library director Lauri Vaughan, Riyaa Randhawa’s presentation covered the role teachers played in establishing the public health system during the American occupation of the Philippines. Filipino students, Randhawa explained, had a unique relationship to the teachers in the American schools they were required to attend, which led to greater knowledge of public health measures. Nevertheless, schools often enforced racial hierarchies by teaching students that their culture and customs were inferior, and education was designed to only qualify them for low-level jobs.
The final group of salons took place on March 28, beginning with Nicole Tian’s presentation on the Brandeis Brief’s influence on law practice and lawmaking in the progressive era, and how it furthered the idea that legal decisions should consider their societal impact. Tian also connected the brief to widely held beliefs about women at the time, particularly that women were the virtuous and moral center of the American family, while men provided economic stability. Lawyer Louis Brandeis successfully argued in Muller v. Oregon that 10-hour workdays for laundry women threatened the nation’s moral character. Tian conducted her research with the mentorship of upper school history teacher Carol Green and upper school librarian Amy Pelman.
Alina Yuan, mentored by Vaughan and upper school English teacher Beth Wahl, covered the work of Japanese author Osamu Dazai, whose work was a cornerstone of the buraiha (“decadent school”) literary movement that became popular in post-World War II Japan. Following the shock and horror of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent societal transformation that took place due to heavy American influence, Dazai depicted the struggle of adjusting to post-war Japanese society Dazai also became admired for his decadent lifestyle, another sign of shifting cultural attitudes.
Finally, William Zhao, whose mentors were Pelman and upper school history teacher Byron Stevens, compared and contrasted the development of liberal democracies in Spain and Portugal in the 20th century. The fall of Spain’s authoritarian Francoist regime and the subsequent transition to democracy, Zhao said, was the result of a top-down process by which opposition and reformist forces in the government dismantled the Francoist political infrastructure. Portugal, by contrast, experienced a coup d’etat by a military fed up with prime minister Antonio Salazar’s insistence on maintaining colonial operations in several African nations.
Junior Sally Zhu was recently published in the Concord Review, an academic journal featuring the historical research of high school students. Zhu’s paper surveys China’s hukou system, a household registration system set up in 1958, and the effects it has had on the country’s economy and citizens in the more than 60 years since it was founded. “I learned about the hukou system from my parents, who grew up in China,” Zhu said. “My mother came from an urban part of China, while my father came from a rural hukou, and they lived drastically differently, when it came to food, income, education and more.”
Zhu spent last summer and the fall working on the paper and conducted research using resources she had access to in her history classes and while doing previous research projects with Harker librarians. “I want to thank my history teachers and librarians for all I’ve learned from them when it comes to historical research and writing, [which] led me to submit my essay!” she said.
Earlier this month at the US Squash Junior Nationals in Philadelphia, fifth grader Sarah Thiru received the Most Improved Player award in the U13 division. This award is given to the junior players in each division who exhibited outstanding growth. Congratulations!
Last week, 21 students were recognized in the National Center for Women & Information Technology’s (NCWIT) 2022 Award for Aspirations in Computing. This award recognizes “women, genderqueer or non-binary students for their computing-related achievements and interests, and encourages them to pursue their passions,” according to the NCWIT website. Students (all of them in grades 9-12) enter by submitting an application containing essay and multiple-choice questions.
Senior Alice Feng and juniors Ashley Hu, Ella Lan, Nidhya Shivakumar, Deeya Viradia, Sabrina Zhu and Sally Zhu all won National Honorable Mentions – the second-highest tier of award – and were all regional Affiliate Winners. Senior Alina Yuan was named an Affiliate Winner. Amiya Chokhawala, Amrita Pasupathy and Ariya Reddy, all grade 11; Ella Yee, grade 10; and ninth graders Melody Yin and Sophia Zhu each won an Affiliate Honorable Mention. Junior Michelle Jin, sophomores Harshini Chaturvedula, Claire Luo and Saloni Shah, and ninth graders Ainslie Chen, Chiling Han and Kashish Priyam were named Affiliate Rising Stars.