At a ceremony held at the Nichols Hall atrium on Tuesday, 30 Harker students were inducted into the Harker chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS), which recognizes high school students nationwide for their academic excellence, service and leadership.
This year’s NHS inductees are:
Aashe Sreekumar, grade 10; Aditya Dhar, grade 11; Akshaya Vemuri, grade 10; Alexander Lam, grade 11; Alex Wang, grade 10; Amy Jin, grade 10; Andrew Rule, grade 11; Anika Jain, grade 11; Arindam Ghosh, grade 10; Arjun Subramaniam, grade 11; Derek Kuo, grade 10; Divija Bhimaraju, grade 10; Emily Chen, grade 10; Jacqueline He, grade 10; Eric Jeong, grade 10; Joanna Lin, grade 10; Julia Huang, grade 10; Justin Su, grade 10; Kaitlin Hsu, grade 10; Kendall Ka, grade 11; Kevin Xu, grade 10; Mary Najibi, grade 12; Melinda Wisdom, grade 11; Mona Lee, grade 10; Morgan Douglas, grade 10; Karena Kong, grade 10; Nikhil Manglik, grade 11; Sahana Srinivasan, grade 10; Sandip Nirmel, grade 11; and Ziwen Ye, grade 11.
Last week, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced that 51 Harker seniors qualified as semifinalists in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program. These students scored in the top 1 percent nationwide on the Preliminary SAT, which was taken last year by about 1.5 million grade 11 students. Overall, 62 percent of Harker’s Class of 2016 scored in the top 3 percent nationally.
The semifinalists are as follows, in alphabetical order by last name:
Vivek Bharadwaj, Jonathan Dai, Rohan Daran, Rohan Desikan, Victoria Ding, Ayushi Gautam, Grace Guan, Prithvi Gudapati, Cynthia Hao, Shannon Hong, Angela Huang, Kaylan Huang, Stephanie Huang, Joshua Hung, Raghav Jain, Maya Jeyendran, Abhinav Ketineni, Kristen Ko, Vineet Kosaraju, Janet Lee, Jason Lee, Adele Li, Lisa Liu, Evan Lohn, Anthony Luo, Sophia Luo, Jonathan Ma, Sadhika Malladi, Natasha Mayor, Shivali Minocha, Anika Mohindra, Aishwarya Murari, Emily Pan, Kristen Park, Sohil Patel, Divya Periyakoil, Karen Qi, Sanil Rajput, Nikita Ramoji, Elisabeth Siegel, Natalie Simonian, Gurutam Thockchom, Karen Tu, Anish Velagapudi, Allison Wang, Esther Wang, Alice Wu, Daphne Yang, Richard Yi, Michael Zhao and Jessica Zhu.
Late next month, four Harker students will head to Grand Ole Opry in Nashville to perform with the All-National Honor Choir. Sahana Narayanan and Gurutam Thockchom, both grade 12, Ashwin Rao, grade 11, and Krishna Bheda, grade 10, were chosen by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) after a nationwide audition process. They will perform in a 350-person ensemble featuring singers from all over the country and those residing overseas in military base schools. Aside from Harker, only two other schools have four or more singers in the ensemble, and Harker’s students account for four of the nine singers from California.
Senior Sharanya Balaji was featured in the San Jose Mercury News for her efforts to bring arts education to Grant Elementary School in San Jose. An avid practitioner of the ancient Indian dance style of Bharatanatyam, Balaji held a benefit dance show three years ago, raising $4,000 that enabled Grant Elementary to bring music, singing and dance lessons to campus. Last year, she held another benefit show and raised twice that amount. Her third dance concert was held Aug. 22, with the amount raised to be determined.
Katherine Zhu, grade 10, took top honors at the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy/Shanshan Feng Junior Championship in August! This is her first American Junior Golf Association win. The AJGA website noted: “With a final-round 2-under-par 70, Katherine Zhu of San Jose, California, earned her first AJGA win at 5-under-par 211. The victory was Zhu’s first AJGA win after having two previous top-three finishes in 2014.” Congrats to Katherine on this accomplishment, a great way to end the summer.
Congrats to Vineet Kosaraju, grade 12, who was named a 2015 Davidson Fellow and will receive a $10,000 college scholarship! Kosaraju was one of only 20 students nationwide selected this year for the annual fellowship. The last Harker student chosen as a Davidson Fellow was Yi Sun ’06, in 2006.
On its website, the Davidson Institute summarized Kosaraju’s project, titled “3D RNA Engineering in a Massive Open Laboratory”: “Vineet created an interface that allows for the design of accurate 3D RNA molecules, and also discovered some design rules that create stable RNA designs. This allows for the more efficient creation and stabilization of new RNA molecules, bringing us closer to the eventual dream of personalized, commonly used RNA therapeutics.” Read more about his work here: http://www.davidsonfellowsscholarship.org/vineet-kosaraju/
The Davidson Fellows Scholarship was named one of the seven most-prestigious undergrad scholarships by U.S. News & World Report, along with Intel, Siemens and National Merit scholarships. http://www.usnews.com/…/7-prestigious-undergrad-scholarships
Congratulations to middle school science teacher Thomas Artiss, who was named the 2015 Outstanding Biology Teacher for California by the National Association of Biology Teachers. Each year, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Awards recognize excellent biology teachers in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, Puerto Rico and other overseas territories. As a recipient of the award, Artiss is now eligible to attend a special honors luncheon at the 2015 NABT Professional Development Conference, to be held in November in Providence, R.I.
Established in 1962, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award has since become one of the most prestigious annual awards given to biology and life science teachers. The award includes a complimentary one-year NABT membership, a special lapel pin and a gift certificate from Carolina Biological Supply Company.
Maverick McNealy ’13 was noted in the San Jose Mercury News on July 16 for holding down third place at the inaugural Barbasol Championship PGA golf tournament in Opelika, Ala. See story at http://bayareane.ws/1Okicw1. McNealy, who won the Haskins Award as the top college linksman, is also the 2015 Division I recipient of the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award, presented by Barbasol on June 5.
An article posted at www.Nicklaus.com notes McNealy’s accomplishments this year:
“A sophomore from Portola Valley, Calif., McNealy led NCAA Division I with six collegiate victories this year. He posted a dominant 10-stroke win at the Pac-12 Conference Championships, where his 18-under aggregate score of 262 established a new league tournament scoring record. The Pac-12 Conference Player owns a 69.05 season scoring average, the second best in recorded NCAA history. McNealy claimed medalist honors at the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional, Southwestern Intercollegiate, Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational, The Prestige at PGA West and The Goodwin. McNealy was selected to compete this summer on the United States Palmer Cup team.”
Three Harker softball players were selected for All-League softball teams as chosen by each league independently! In the Peninsula/Lake Division, Alisa Wakita (SS/2B/P), rising grade 12, was named to the second team, and Vivian Isenberg ’15 (1B/P/OF) and Kristin LeBlanc (2B/P/SS), rising grade 10, both received honorable mentions. Go Eagles!
Six Harker baseball players were selected for All-League baseball teams as chosen by each league independently! In the Peninsula/Lake Division, Miles DeWitt (infield), rising grade 12, and Nate Kelly (infield), rising grade 10, were both selected for first team; Dominic Cea (catcher), rising grade 10, was selected for the second team; and Keanu Forbes ’15 (OF/INF/P); Matt Kennedy (OF/P), rising grade 10; and Varun Haltore (3B/1B/P), rising grade 10, received honorable mentions. Go Diamond Eagles!