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.
On the eve of this year’s graduation exercises, juniors, seniors and senior parents gathered at the upper school quad for the annual baccalaureate ceremony, during which members of the Class of 2020 graciously accepted their responsibility as leaders in the coming 2019-20 school year. The audience was treated to performances by Cantilena and the The Harker String Orchestra before upper school math chair Anthony Silk, chosen by the Class of 2019 as this year’s faculty speaker, took the podium.
Silk shared some of the wisdom he learned from his father, whom he remembered as a voracious reader with a steel trap-like memory. From his father, Silk learned to become an enthusiastic learner, as well as the importance of not choosing a career based on income. He also told the seniors that not knowing what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives was no reason for panic, particularly in a rapidly changing world. “The path that brings you the most happiness may not have even been invented yet,” he said. “You may have to be the one to invent it.”
Upper Division Head Butch Keller introduced senior Haris Hosseini, this year’s student farewell speaker, whose humor-laced speech elicited many laughs from his peers. Hosseini recalled being named this year’s speaker three weeks prior. “So as I began writing it on the bus ride back from Laguna yesterday,” he quipped, “I was having a little bit of trouble. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say.” He then related a story about how faced an immense fear looming over him as his senior year approached: how to secure 1.5 required PE credits in one year. The experience was valuable to him, as it gave him “a lot of time to reflect on my senior year here at Harker and what it meant to me,” which afforded a newfound appreciation for his time at the school.
VA (Grades 6-8) Gold Tennis: The varsity A gold tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in first place in the WBAL at 6-1 and second place in the MTP at 2-1. The team finished the MTP tournament in second place and had an overall season record of 9-3. Team awards went to Anthony Tong and Ryan Chang, both grade 8 (MVPs), Medini Halepete, grade 7, and Jeffrey Zhang, grade 6 (Eagle), and Jacob Huang, grade 8, and Audrey Feng, grade 6 (Coaches).
VA (Grades 6-8) Silver Tennis: The varsity A silver tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in seventh place in the WBAL with a record of 1-6. Team awards went to Yasmin Sudarsanam, grade 6, and Joe Li, grade 7 (MVPs), Brian Harder, grade 8, and Katilyn Su, grade 6 (Eagle), and Ramit Goyal, grade 7, and Misha Tkachenko, grade 6 (Coaches).
VA (Grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The varsity A team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by high school volleyball players Katrina Liou, Srija Gadiraju, Lauren Beede, Emily Cheng and Anya Gert, finished in a two-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a record of 6-2 and went 6-3 overall. Team awards went to Vivian Bi, grade 8 (MVP), Rachel Ning and Allison Zhu, both grade 8 (Eagle), and Jessica Tang, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB (Grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The varsity B team, coached by Kurt Schwartz, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 6-2. Team awards went to Sonya He, grade 8, and Anjali Yella, grade 7 (MVPs), Kate Grannis, grade 7 (Eagle) and Ashley Ma, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVA (Grade 6) Girls Volleyball: The junior varsity A team, coached by Belle Carley, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 5-1. Team awards went to Stephanie Bossolina (MVP), Alison Yang (Eagle) and Angelina Burrows (Coaches).
JVB1 (Grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The junior varsity B1 team, coached by Ellie Pereira, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. Team awards went to Tanvi Sivakumar (MVP), Aline Grinspan (Eagle) and Delara Gholami (Coaches).
JVB2 (Grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The junior varsity B2 team, coached by Allie Pereira, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 2-4. Team awards went to Sophia Schafer-Wharton (MVP), Ava Bhowmik (Eagle) and Anika Rajaram (Coaches).
Intramural (Grade 4) Girls Volleyball: Team awards went to Riya Samuel (MVP), Divya Bhupathi(Eagle) and Finley Ho (Coaches). The team was coached by Emily Pereira and Kaitlyn Seawright.
VA (Grades 7-8) Baseball: The varsity A team, coached Jon Cvitanich, Richard Amarillas, Adam Albers and Marcus Anderson, finished in sixth placein the WBAL with a record of 2-5. Team awards went to Freddy Hoch, grade 8 (MVP), Nicholas Delfino, grade 8 (Eagle) and Daniel Lin, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (Grades 4-6) Baseball: The junior varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, Tim Hopkins, Brandon Carroll and Marcus Anderson, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-6. Team awards went to Zackary Delfino, grade 4 (MVP), Kylie Anderson, grade 6 (Eagle) and Nathan Wilcox, grade 6 (Coaches).
Intramural (Grades 4-5) Baseball: Team awards went to Spencer Mo and Ameera Ramzan, both grade 4, (Eagle) and Anirudh Subramanian, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Walid Fahmy and Tobias Wade.
VA (Grades 7-8) Boys Volleyball: The varsity A team, coached by Pete Anderson, finished in first place in the ADAL with a record of 8-0. The team went 10-0 overall. Team awards went to Tyler Beede, grade 8, and Adrian Liu, grade 7 (MVPs), Spencer Mak, grade 7 (Eagle) and Michael Sullivan, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVA (Grades 6-7) Boys Volleyball: The junior varsity A team, coached by Spring Wang and Sara Pawloski, finished in a tie for third place in the ADAL with a record of 5-3. Team awards went to Liam Jeffers, grade 6(MVP), Rayan Arya, grade 6 (Eagle) and Varun Bhupathi, grade 6 (Coaches).
VA (Grades 6-8) Boys Water Polo: The middle school boy’s water polo team, coached by Ted Ujifusa and Allie Lamb, finished with a 2-4 in the WBAL. Team awards went to Indigo Lee, grade 8,and Lachlan Rossi, grade 7 (MVPs), Robert Fields, grade 6 (Eagle) and Drake Piscione, grade 8 (Coaches).
VA (Grades 6-8) Girls Water Polo: The middle school girl’s water polo team, coached by Ted Ujifusa and Allie Lamb, finished 3-2 in the WBAL. Team awards went to Jasleen Hansra, grade 8, and Sydney Adler, grade 8 (MVPs), Chiling Han, grade 6 (Eagle) and Ria Kohli, grade 6 (Coaches).
MS (Grades 6-8) Golf: The middle school golf team, coached by Ie-Chen Cheng, took second place in the WBAL spring tournament held at the Moffet Field Golf Course. The team shot a 156 on the front nine. The top eight golfers were Freddy Hoch, grade 8 (36), Athreya Daniel, grade 8 (38), Allison Yang, grade 6 (39), Nika Gholami, grade 8, and Jack Yang, grade 7 (43), Yu Bai, grade 7 (44) and Emi Fujimura, grade 7 (47) and David Jang, grade 7 (51).
LS (Grades 4-5) Boys and Girls Track: The lower school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Hannah Grannis and Dini Wong, took second overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were:
David Kelly, grade 4 (100m)
Brandon Labio, grade 4 (400m)
MS (Grades 6-8) Boys and Girls Track: The middle school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Hannah Grannis and Dini Wong, took second overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were:
Chiling Han, grade 6 (200m, 400m, 800m)
Anjali Yella, grade 7 (50m, 100m, 200m, long jump)
Andrew Fu, grade 8 (long jump)
Rigo Gonzales, grade 8 (200m, 400m, 800m)
Rigo Gonzales, Andrew Fu, Zain Vakath and Armaan Thakker, all grade 8 (4 x 100 relay)
In mid-May, junior Allison Jia was named one of two winners of the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair! Jia’s project, which studied proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases, won her a $50,000 prize! It also was named Best in Category for cell and molecular biology and won a First Award, earning Jia an additional $5,000 and $1,000, respectively.
Senior Ruhi Sayana also did well at the fair, winning a $10,000 scholarship from the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association for her project in the biomedical and health sciences category, in which she also won a $1,000 Third Award from Intel ISEF and a $500 Second Award from the Ashtavadhani Vidwan Ambati Subbaraya Chetty Foundation. In the computational biology and informatics category, junior Cynthia Chen received a Third Award of $1,000. All three students won trips to the Intel ISEF at the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science & Technology Championship in March.
Jia’s efforts were writtten up in several publications:
By Jenny Achten, Speech and Debate Department Chair, Grades 6-12
The middle school speech and debate team had an outstanding weekend at the Middle School Tournament of Champions, hosted by the University of Kentucky on May 11-12.
The team won first place in overall sweepstakes for the best performance at the tournament by any school. Shoring up this award were the top speaker in Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ansh Sheth, grade 7, and top speaker in policy debate, Deeya Viradia, grade 8. Arjun Krishna, grade 7, Krishna Mysoor, grade 7, and Mir Bahri, grade 8, also won debate speaker awards.
Harker had a three-way closeout of the final round in Lincoln-Douglas debate with Alexander Lan, grade 8, Kabir Buch, grade 7, and Mysoor sharing the championship. Joe Li, grade 7, and Sheth also cleared in Lincoln-Douglas. The policy team of Bahri and Viradia made it to semifinals. Additionally, Arissa Huda, grade 8, was in the final round of extemporaneous speaking.
The coaches are all thrilled with the results of our students’ hard work! A special thanks to Shania Hunt, middle school debate teacher, who did a fabulous job of organizing this large and complicated trip. The students were not only well prepared, but were safe and had fun.