Last week, Harker sophomores Sneha Bhetanabhotla, Trisha Dwivedi, Neymika Jain and Kshithija Mulam traveled to San Diego to present their research project at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology. Their project, on alternative breast cancer treatments, was one of eight high school projects chosen from around the country. On March 24, the students presented it for the first time to toxicology professors and experts.
That same day, the students met with researchers from Paris and toured the San Diego Convention Center. The following day, they were chosen to present at the poster session where toxicology experts were showing their research.
“Our research considered alternative treatments to breast cancer by using sodium bicarbonate to counteract acidity and enhance alkalization in the body in order to inhibit the invasion and metastasis of the cancer tumor,” said Mulam. “This experiment was conducted in vitro on mammary carcinoma cell line 4T1 using known anti-cancer supplement epigallocatechin gallate (green tea extract) as a comparison point to sodium bicarbonate.”
“Our project was accepted to the poster presenting session in which other professionals and researchers were presenting their works,” said Dwivedi. “On both days, we had a lot of professors and experts on the cancer cells and experiments we tested, so we received both commendations as well as feedback on how we can improve our project and take it to the next level. We are pleased to see that many experts who had been researching what we did were interested by what we had done, and our team is hopeful to expand upon our project to hopefully be able to present at next year’s conference in New Orleans.”
The professors in attendance were happy to offer advice to the students, who jumped at the opportunity to receive feedback from notable people in the field. “The chance to network with professionals and to present our findings to a larger audience at the conference was definitely an unforgettable experience for all of us,” said Mulam, “We hope to encounter more opportunities that help us further explore and appreciate the merits of research in the future.”
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!
This story is a continuation of “Harker Research: Profiles in Perseverance,” a story that appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly highlighting scientific research being performed by Harker students. Read on to find out more about these students’ fascinating projects and exciting discoveries!
Shikhar Dixit, Grade 12
Shikhar Dixit’s interest in STEM research led him to perform pharmaceutical research at biotech company Cellworks last year. He later discovered that he enjoyed immunology. “I find immunology intriguing because of the interesting intricacies involved,” he said. “When reading research about how the immune system relates to the eye, I became even more interested in pursuing this project.”
For his project, “Immunomodulation by Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Line ARPE-19,” Dixit was mentored by Dr. Andrew W. Taylor at Boston University Medical Center. “My experience … in the lab environment dealing with fascinating lab equipment and cell cultures while interacting with many Ph.D. and medical students has been the most exciting part of the research,” he said.
Over the course of his research, Dixit found that “there are specific tissues in the body such as the eyes, brain, central nervous system and testes that suppress inflammation in a phenomenon known as immune privilege.”
Matthew Huang, Grade 12
Matthew Huang’s “interest and passion in physics” led him to his research project of quarks and gluons. “I’ve always had a curiosity for how the universe worked at a fundamental level, and researching about quarks and gluons is the perfect subject,” he said.
His project, “Quarks and Gluons in Spacetime: BiCGSTAB Implementation of Lattice QCD on Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor,” sought to find “a more efficient way to carry out lattice QCD processes, which determine the interactions between quarks and gluons.” One of the most fascinating things he learned was that “you can never separate a pair of quarks, no matter how much energy you put in. Empty space is not actually empty, but filled with oscillating energy fields comprised of gluons.”
Huang’s mentor, William Detmold of MIT, “guided me throughout the entire project and remained supportive through difficulties.”
Leeza Kuo, Grade 12
Leeza Kuo, grade 12, chose stem cells as the subject of her research project, “Embryonic stem cell markers KLf4 and SSEA1 expressed as a result of acute-liver damage,” because of the possible health benefits they offer. “I love to help others and researching stem cells could lead to new regenerative health procedures that could help many people,” she said. “Stem cells are very popular field of research today partially because of the potential it could have on regenerative medicine.”
Being in the research program at Harker afforded Kuo opportunities she may not have had otherwise. “Thanks to [Harker’s] strong science program, I was able to complete my research project using methods including electrophoresis and polymerase chain reaction that are not readily available at most other schools,” she noted.
The extra help sessions she attended at school also helped her understand material more clearly, as it allowed her to review topics with her teachers and ask more pointed questions. “Harker teachers are always extremely supportive and encouraging in their student’s work because of the small faculty to student ratio,” Kuo said. “All my teachers know me by name along with my personality and character.”
What excited Kuo most about her research was the implications it may have for changing how – and how long – people live: “Induced pluripotent stem cells could be the key to reversing aging and repairing genetic mutations by implanting new tissues, becoming the non-fictional fountain of youth.”
Ankita Pannu, Grade 12
Ankita Pannu’s project, “Mining online cancer support groups: improving healthcare through social data,” was special to her for a variety of reasons, but one stands out. “I wanted to do this project after a member in my family was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” she recalled. “I spent a lot of time in thyroid cancer support groups and I realized that they are really hard to navigate, so I decided to use my knowledge of computer science to solve this problem.”
Pannu’s hope was to make this particular online support group easier to navigate so that thyroid cancer patients will have an easier time finding helpful materials. “I hoped to be able to summarize and categorize threads so that users would be able to easily determine whether it would be valuable for them to read,” she said. “I also tried to find correlations between symptoms and treatments based on what people were discussing.”
In addition to having success in these areas, she said it gave her some ideas for future research she hopes to pursue. The project also gave her a chance to combine her love of computer science and linguistics into a single project.
“I have always been interested in computer science and especially the intersection of linguistics and CS to find meaning in human language,” she said. “It is so fascinating to me that computers are becoming more intelligent systems and we can use different algorithms to make sense out of natural language.”
Archana Podury, Grade 12
Hematology was new for Archana Podury, grade 12, who is working with Stanford University’s Dr. Anu Parla while researching uses for the novel drug CX-5641 for her project, “Targeting Myelodisplasia in 5q- Syndrome Using Novel Drug CX-5641.” Podury has found Dr. Narla to “incredibly helpful.
“When I was becoming familiar with the pathways and the properties of blood cells that were involved with the drug, she decided to hold weekly lectures in her office to teach me segments of confusing material and answer any questions I had.”
Shadowing Narla at a hematology clinic at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Podury had the opportunity to “meet actual patients, study patient samples and learn about blood smears. She always works to contextualize her research and works very closely with her patients, which reinforced to me that research isn’t just a distanced study that happens in a lab, it has actual application for real people.”
Under Narla’s mentorship, Podury, has been considered a real member of the team at the lab. “Since I’m still working in the lab during the school year, she organizes monthly lab meetings discussing everyone’s projects and makes sure I can make it to the meetings,” Podury said. “I’m very thankful to have had her as a mentor; she has helped me so much throughout the process.”
Podury hopes that her work at the lab will reveal that “[CX-5641] can selectively target defective 5q- cells in not just an A549 model, but also in CD34 blood cells and in patient samples. It’s a long way to go, but I’m excited to keep working.”
Because she is not yet 18, Podury is not able to work with core blood, but watching her colleagues process core blood has been one of the most exciting parts of her research. She has also been introduced to techniques that she had not been familiar with previously. “I learned about viral transfections and knocking down segments of DNA using lentivirus, which was especially interesting because we learned about lentivirus in AP Bio, but I never knew something so dangerous could be used so effectively in research,” she said.
Podury’s experience with research began in middle school through the Harker Research Club. Prior to her work at Stanford, she worked at Harker’s Open Lab. “I was able to see many sides of research that I didn’t know about before, like how important the stage of ordering materials is, how unpredictable results can be even when they’re planned very precisely, and how to analyze and respond to errors in data,” she said. “Harker lets us access so many resources, and before working in open lab, I honestly had no idea that the lab had so much high quality equipment that was available to students. It’s really a privilege.”
Sahana Rangarajan, Grade 12
“I wanted to spend my summer at a research internship to gain the experience necessary to conduct research in college,” said senior Sahana Rangarajan.
Her project, “Tracking parallel mutation trajectories conferring increased resistance to HIV-RT inhibitors,” was the result of a newfound interest in biology and programming. “Thus, bioinformatics seemed a perfect field to try research in,” she said.
The goal of the research was to improve ways of predicting how HIV develops mutations that resist drug treatment. In the process, the research team “used a new method that yielded promising results,” Rangarajan said. Interestingly, she added, “there was no lab based component, but learning about the biology behind HIV was necessary for me to understand what I was doing.”
Nikash Sankar, Grade 12
During his work as a volunteer at a dementia care facility, senior Nikash Shankar witnessed the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease firsthand, and wanted to help. “As I was investigating various herbal remedies for Alzheimer’s, I came across curcumin, a spice that is commonly used in Asian cooking,” he said. “Being familiar with the spice, I became interested in its effects on Alzheimer’s disease and possible methods of improving its efficacy.”
Researching further, Shankar discovered he could increase curcumin’s ability to reduce toxicity caused by Alzheimer’s through “encapsulation of curcumin into polymeric nanoparticles.”
Adding to the field of Alzheimer’s research was the most exciting part of his project, titled “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.” “Everything we find through our research (that is novel) is something that no one has ever found before and discovering or even validating a scientific finding as a high school student is a rare opportunity,” he said.
Science teachers Chris Spenner, Anita Chetty and other Harker faculty members provided helpful feedback to Sankar as he was creating his paper.
Aside from having a unique research opportunity, Shankar also had the rare chance to use a scanning electron microscope. “SEM’s are incredibly expensive and only very few exist in California,” he said.
Venkat Sankar, Grade 10
Sophomore Venkat Sankar’s interest in environmental science led him to research the environmental impact of the proposed billion-dollar Panoche Valley Solar Farm, which would be constructed in central California’s Panoche Valley if approved.
Sankar said he was “[concerned] about the potential impact of the Panoche [Valley] Solar Farm project on the rare and endangered wildlife in the area.” The main goal of his project, ‘Managing the Impact of Infrastructure Projects on Endangered Species: A Stochastic Simulation Approach Based on Population Viability Analysis,’ was to use computer simulations that would analyze available information and use it to simulate a system, in hopes of coming up with “a detailed assessments of the impact of infrastructure projects on endangered wildlife.”
He received help from middle school science teacher Daniel Sommer, who offered advice and introduced Sankar to an expert in environmental sciences. Upper school science teacher Jeff Sutton also provided input on the final paper.
“It has been validated using a real-life case study in California,” Sankar said of his project. “It is broadly applicable to a range of environmental impact studies around the world.”
Madelyn Wang, Grade 12
After taking Harker’s research methods class in grade 10, Madelyn Wang, now grade 12, became interesting in pursuing scientific research. This past summer, she enrolled at UC Davis’ Young Scholars Program , where she worked on developing a blot procedure for detecting trace amounts of protein in tissue samples with her mentor, Dr. Aldrin Gomes. “I also studied the protein expression levels of GSTM1, an antioxidant enzyme, and looked at if those levels were altered in diabetic and non-diabetic mice,” she said. He project is titled “Optimized Western blotting allows for detection of Glutathione S-Transferase Mu 1 levels in hearts from type I diabetic Akita mice and wild-type mice.”
Overall, Wang said her time spent in the Young Scholars Program “was a great way to get hands-on experience in the lab while living in the dorms and getting a college experience.”
Serena Wang, Grade 12
“I have always been curious and eager to try new things,” said senior Serena Wang of her project, “Coronary Artery Calcification and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in South Asians.” “This project mainly required me to develop my abilities to do statistical analysis, which I had never focused on before.”
Wang drew on her background in computer science to analyze data she had gathered about cardiovascular disease. “Heart disease is a common illness, and I wanted to improve current methods of predicting cardiovascular disease risk,” she said.
Mentored by Ashish Mathur of the South Asian Heart Center at El Camino Hospital, Wang utilized the resources made available to her to identify a specific area of study. “I wish to find a better way to determine cardiovascular disease risk for the South Asian population, which suffers from a significantly higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease than other ethnicities,” she said.
The skills Wang learned at Harker were key to helping her gain a greater understanding of the topic. “After learning so much at school, I am finally able to use the theoretical concepts I learned in school to do novel research,” she said. “The potential effects of my results could help the South Asian Heart Center better predict cardiovascular disease risk and thus more effectively prevent development of the disease.”
Wang’s research gave her the opportunity to pick up new skills, including the use of statistical analysis software. “With such specific syntax and so many different commands, the software was challenging to learn to use efficiently, but now I am experienced enough to even teach a new student researcher how to use the application.”
Samyukta Yagati, Grade 12
During her freshman year, Samyukta Yagati, who has been doing research projects since grade 7, became interested in computer science, a subject she has pursued actively ever since. “Research is a lot of fun for me,” she said. “I enjoy the process, the discovery, the challenge, applying things I’ve learned in class to real-life problems.”
Her project, “Optimizing Segmentation Performance to Improve Diagnosis of Breast Lesions,” gave her the opportunity to explore both computer science and biology, a topic she had recently become enamored with. “I have loved computer science since freshman year, and I’ve been interested in bio. That interest intensified after bio in junior year,” she recalled.
In her research, Yagati hoped to improve an algorithm that is used to diagnose patients with breast lesions. “Improving the results/increasing automation of the process can really help effectiveness and usability of the program in clinics, hopefully improving patient experience and treatment,” she said.
While researching for the project, Yagati learned some interesting things about medical research: “Knowing information as simple as whether the edge of a lesion … is spiky or not can give doctors a lot of information about malignancy!”
Michael Zhao, Grade 11
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, perhaps better known by the acronym ALS and the nickname Lou Gehrig’s disease, received a lot of attention this past summer due to the craze created by the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Junior Michael Zhao’s own research began after he read numerous articles on the topic. “Especially over the summer, with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, I felt like my research had a tangible impact and made the experience more interesting,” he said.
Zhao’s project, “A Yeast Functional Screen Elucidates Potential Mechanisms of C9ORF72 RAN Protein Toxicity in ALS Pathogenesis,” involved searching for genetic modifiers for RAN proteins. “RAN proteins, the focus of my research, were first identified in 2011,” he said. “Yet, three years later, we still know very little about the underlying mechanisms of RAN protein toxicity.”
Zhao worked with a mentor that he said was extremely helpful. “My mentor has taught me many techniques to perform experiments, he said. “Furthermore, he offered me an experience I could never have hoped to obtain elsewhere.” Working in a university lab was also a new and exciting experience, which offered many learning opportunities.
In addition, he received a lot of help from Harker science teachers in refining his project. “In particular, they were very helpful in reading over my paper and giving me feedback,” he said.
During a special assembly on Oct. 19, upper school students heard from three representatives of The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). Based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, CNS aims to prevent weapons of mass destruction from spreading by educating young people on issues of nonproliferation.
At the beginning of the assembly, Diana Nichols, former head of school and member of the Harker Board of Trustees, announced a new partnership with CNS and introduced CNS researcher and project manager Masako Toki. After giving a brief rundown of CNS and its goals, Toki told students about the center’s Critical Issues Forum (CIF), a program that enables high school students from around the world to come together to discuss and present research on nonproliferation topics. Next year’s CIF Student Conference will be held in Hiroshima, Japan, where the first of two atomic bombs was dropped in 1945 to hasten the end of World War II.
Another speaker was Tom Greg, a CNS graduate and researcher who served in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine and held a crucial role in the decision to launch nuclear missiles. He recounted the story of his visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum, which he called “one of the most intense experiences of my life.” He later decided to devote his graduate studies to researching nuclear nonproliferation.
The final speaker was Avner Cohen, senior fellow and professor at CNS, who spoke about the history of the nuclear age, including the discovery of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which had been hidden for many years. Cohen showed a video that recapped the advent of nuclear weapons, from the earliest threat of their potential use by the Nazis to the arms race that helped drive the Cold War.
Recently, a group of Harker students began working with computer science department chair Eric Nelson on nonproliferation studies. The students plan to research a topic yet to be chosen and present at the conference in Hiroshima.
“I see a future of going into politics or political science, and I’m also on the debate team, so it seemed like a topic that would be of interest to me,” said Zarek Drozda, grade 11, one of the students working with Nelson. “Certainly I’ve heard about nuclear problems through debate and such, so I think kind of doing debate awakened me to these issues and I found an interest in it.”
“We’re just every week trying to find different topics to cover that will take us in the right direction once the project gets started,” said Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari, grade 12, who discovered the topic through his interest in physics. “I’m really interested in physics and so I’ve been talking to Dr. Nelson about just nuclear weapons in general for the past year or so. He brought to my attention this project and I liked the politics part of it as well.”
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”)
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Since their foundings in 2009 and 2011, respectively, the John Near history endowment and the Mitra humanities endowment have become symbols of the Harker community’s dedication to helping students pursue a broad array of interests. The endowments have funded 21 meticulously researched historical analyses to date.
Established after the 2009 passing of beloved history teacher John Near and funded by his parents, Jim and Pat Near, The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment echoes Near’s passion for history education. In addition to funding the continued development of the John Near Resource Center, the endowment provides students with opportunities to do high-level academic research on their chosen historical topics.
Two years later, Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Sachin ‘10; Shivani ‘13) established The Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities, a $100,000 fund that further expands research opportunities into areas such as philosophy, languages and the arts. This endowment exemplifies the Mitras’ “whole mission” philosophy, which emphasizes not just mathematical and scientific know-how but also the ability to know what people need, “so that you can create something to help make the world a better place,” said Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement.
Each year, Harker seniors submit proposals on topics in history and the humanities that they would like to explore. Those chosen to receive Near and Mitra grants are then assigned a faculty mentor and spend the next year researching and writing their papers. Their journeys often lead to fascinating discoveries. Shivani Mitra, one of the first Mitra scholars, traveled to Mexico City to speak with members of Frida Kahlo’s family for her project on the life and impact of the legendary painter and feminist icon. She also unearthed archival photos that provided further insight into Kahlo’s life and how it influenced her work.
“We had so much fun,” said history department chair Donna Gilbert, who mentored Mitra during her research. “Neither of us had seen any of those archival photographs before.”
Gilbert and Library Director Sue Smith, who evaluate and approve student proposals for the grants, admitted to trepidation about the programs upon their initial launch. “That first year, we kind of held our breath; we weren’t sure if anyone was even going to want to do it,” Gilbert said.
“Are they going to line up to do independent research in their senior year that’s going to take hours and hours of their time?” Smith remembered asking at the time.
Their concerns were allayed both by the response to the grant programs, which attracted dozens of applicants this past school year, and the quality of the resulting papers. Students have begun asking about the grants as early as grade 9, “and not just as a resume builder, but with a genuine interest in a topic,” Gilbert said.
The grant programs also have acted as a source of professional development for the faculty mentors, who often find themselves caught up in the subjects that the students are studying. “We’re all intellectually interested ourselves,” Smith said. “I’ve watched mentors do research simultaneously with the kids to stay one step ahead so that they can help them.”
Just this summer, Smith bumped into Apoorva Rangan, grade 12 and one of this year’s Near scholars, and found herself in a conversation about Rangan’s research on news coverage of the Vietnam War and the resulting tension between news media and the federal government. The discussion turned to how Rangan planned to focus her project after learning how the Freedom of Information Act affected television coverage of the war. “She’s seeing things in history colliding and questioning what affected what,” Smith said. “Those kinds of things sustain those of us in education for weeks at a time.”
For Rangan, the importance of the Near and Mitra grants lies in how they reinforce Harker’s mission to help students discover and foster their love for any topic. “The grants haven’t just enhanced learning opportunities for the scholars,” Rangan said. “They’ve helped bring balance to the entire student body. They’ve helped emphasize to students that you can make any subject as rigorous as you want it to be.”
The grants also provide additional motivation for students to excel in social studies and the humanities, something to which Rangan can personally attest. “When I was thinking about proposal topics for the grant, I found myself more involved and engaged in my history classes,” she said.
In their proposals, students frequently cite work they have done in previous years, Smith said. “Oftentimes they provide a resume in their application for the grant,” she said. “The point is that they see our research scope and sequence in the history department as preparation.”
The effort and passion that goes into these projects also can have lasting effects that extend far beyond the students’ high school careers. While working on her paper about the impact of the feminist and civil rights movements on the disability rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s, Near scholar Zina Jawadi ’13, who is hearing impaired, also began devising a plan for how to improve the lives of people with disabilities, particularly the removal of barriers to educational opportunities.
For Jawadi, one of the greatest benefits of being a Near scholar was the mentorship she received from Smith and history teacher Ruth Meyer, both of whom offered advice on how to create a paper that would bolster her long-term goals. “Dr. Meyer and Ms. Smith mentioned in my first meeting in senior year that I should focus on the history of the disability rights movement rather than the policy change,” she said.
“Dr. Meyer then explained that the policy change paper could have more of an impact in the real world, if I published [it] in a few years, once I have established my advocacy work, and once I have solidified my [knowledge of the] historical background of the disability rights movement.”
Though they are happy with the grant programs as they currently exist, Gilbert and Smith have discussed some possible future improvements. Gilbert would like to see Near and Mitra scholars share and discuss their work with the community more often, hoping that “students will see research not necessarily as a burden or as … just another assignment that they have to check off, but [as] transformative.”
Another possibility is adding more multimedia elements, such as links to videos or sounds embedded into the electronic versions of the papers. “When somebody interviews Frida Kahlo’s family, it would be fabulous to be able to have a video clip embedded in the paper,” Smith said.
Above all, Gilbert and Smith hope that the grants continue in their mission to offer research opportunities to students who wish to explore the subjects they love.
“I feel like we are so in touch with the kids’ interests and can support them in this program,” Smith said. “This is the ultimate individualized learning program.”
Mitra and Near Scholar papers have all been summarized and the summaries can be found in Harker News at news. harker.org; search “endowment.” The papers themselves can be found on our website at http://library.harker.org/nearmitra.
Oct. 28, 2014: On Oct. 21, Daniela Lee, grade 12, and Sadhika Malladi, grade 11, were honored by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and the San Jose City Council with mayoral commendations for their success in the Google Science Fair. The students received the commendations at a meeting of the city council where they met both Mayor Reed and councilmember Ash Kalra.
—
Sept. 23, 2014: The 2014 Google Science Fair has ended, and senior Daniela Lee and junior Sadhika Malladi have finished as global finalists in the 17-18 age group. Congratulations to these students for reaching this stage of this worldwide competition!
—
Daniela Lee, grade 12, and Sadhika Malladi, grade 11, have been named finalists in the 2014 Google Science Fair in the 17-18 age group! The two entered as a team and their project is up for the Voter’s Choice Award. Voting is open until Sept. 13, so be sure visit the Google Science Fair website to cast your vote! Lee and Malladi also will compete at Google headquarters on Sept. 22 for a grand prize package that includes a National Geographic Expeditions excursion to the Galapagos Islands, a visit to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport and a $50,000 scholarship.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Every day is “library day” at Harker’s lower school campus, where daily checkouts have skyrocketed to an all-time high.
From its humble beginnings as a place used primarily for storytelling in Harker’s former K-8 program, the Bucknall library has evolved into a bookworm’s paradise and 21st century research space for K-5 students.
When Harker’s lower school relocated from the upper school campus to the Bucknall campus in 1998, library development had been identified as a top priority during many in-depth long-range planning sessions. Improvements to the newly purchased lower school campus included the conversion of the multipurpose room into a library, which then benefited greatly from the school’s annual giving campaign for the purchase of books.
Today, a wealth of materials are available in the library, from DVDs and videos to books on tape and downloadable titles for e-readers. There are also professional and parenting resources, graphic novels, fiction and non-fiction books – more than 19,000 items in all.
“No student on the Bucknall campus should ever go home to an empty nightstand!” enthused Kathy Clark, lower school librarian, who has been working at Harker for the past 19 years. “There are a total of 1,200 items in circulation as of right now,” she reported, adding that several hundred books could be checked out on any given day.
A past presenter at the Harker Teachers Institute, California Association of Independent Schools and Internet Librarian and International Society for Technology in Education, Clark is also a member of several library associations as well as a former Harker parent.
Her son (Daniel Clark ’10) currently works with Harker’s tech and theater departments. He worked on sound and lighting, as well as acted as a microphone handler, during the recent library-sponsored Ogre Awards, which is a beloved annual production and part of the library’s grade 2 curriculum of comparative folklore.
To help keep up with increased circulation, the lower school library’s staff of three is aided by a dedicated group of 18 parent volunteers, many of whom have stayed on even after their children moved on to middle school.
“Without the volunteers, we couldn’t do it. They are the heart and soul of the library,” said Moureen Lennon, a library assistant who also works as the library’s volunteer coordinator. “It’s a huge commitment and ensures that students can check out in a timely manner. All new volunteers are trained on where library items are located and how to reshelve the books,” she added.
Along with expanding the library’s collection, Clark helps students navigate the use of 21st century technology tools for research. Yet, cautions Clark, even though students can research online nowadays, it’s more important than ever to learn basic information skills. To that end, teaching them how to find, evaluate and use information for research, both online and in print, is a primary focus.
“I can still remember a time when we used to ask the students if they had Internet access at home. Now it’s a given. But the question is what’s the best way to search for information online,” explained Clark, adding, “Google is not always the best choice.”
However, Clark stressed that the lower school library offers information in a variety of formats which provide lots of developmental options for students. In addition to the library’s extensive print collections, all Harker students have 24/7 access to more than 90 outstanding subscription databases and thousands of fiction and non-fiction titles through eBook subscription services managed by the libraries.
No matter how they prefer to read books, all lower school students enjoy weekly visits to the library, either for formal classes or free-reading periods. In the primary grades, classes are taught a story-based curriculum, using teaching techniques such as acting, listening and stimulating the imagination. Noting that books were the precursor to television and the movies, Clark said that many folktales heavily influenced popular children’s movies. “I tell the kids, I don’t do Disney … I have the originals!” she said, referring to the impressive collection of international folk and fairytale books available in the library.
Although grade 5 students do not attend formal weekly classes, Clark sees them regularly as she collaborates with their subject teachers to teach important research skills through engaging projects and assignments. Additionally, grade 5 students are encouraged to simply read for pleasure through a library program called the Fifth Grade Reads Project.
“In grade 5, we noticed a drop off in interest (and time) for reading due to increased homework and extracurricular activities. We launched the program to help fight that reading drop-off,” said Lennon, who came up with the idea for the project, in which students are regularly introduced to various authors and their works, but are then free to choose and check out anything they want. They are also given free-reading time in the library.
Another important element of the lower school library is its ongoing collaboration with teachers across subjects and grades to enrich lessons with information literacy skills.
For example, a group of grade 5 students – Emma-Leigh Stoll, Nilisha Baid, Ryan Tobin and Srinath Somasundaram – were recently in the library videotaping a scene for their “Famous Americans Project,” a special cross-disciplinary assignment between their computer and social studies classes. The project relies heavily on library research to ultimately create original short historic films depicting the lives of selected high-profile individuals.
With a gray wig and other props, the group was creating a film about Susan B. Anthony, an American social reformer who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. The team agreed that the best thing about the project was how much it mirrored the real working world as a truly collaborative experience. The students said they relied heavily on the library’s resources to write their historical script.
Another exciting collaborative effort, new this year, is a grade 4 endeavor utilizing both the library and math lab, which formed from a career project developed as part of the fourth grade curriculum.
“This year we were lucky to embark on collaboration with elementary math teacher Eileen Schick for fourth grade,” reported lower school librarian Katrina Nye. “Students worked on a career project, creating a basic household budget and getting hands-on experience using their online research skills. Every class learned the basics of Web evaluation, gaining an understanding of different sources of information, and using them appropriately in a real-life context.”
Earlier in the school year, fourth graders worked on a country research project in a collaborative effort between the librarian and language arts teacher. Meanwhile, working in small groups, grade 3 students researched the care and habitat of zoo animals. They then created a “virtual zoo” using online project pages for their library class. (To view those results go to: http://library.harker.org/zoo.)
In addition to an array of year-round programs and projects, every spring the lower school library hosts a popular annual book fair, which coincides with Grandparents’ Day. Held in the Bucknall library, the sale includes a wide variety of books. The proceeds support the purchase of additional library materials, but, said Clark, the greatest benefit to the school is the wonderful sense of community the book fairs inspire.
According to Harker’s library director, Sue Smith, information literacy is the cornerstone of the library program schoolwide. “Students enjoy rich collections of print and eBooks selected to support their interests and passions. We promote reading through book clubs, book talks, author visits, special displays and summer reading programs,” she said.
Reflecting back on her own library lessons, grade 4 student Zeel Thakkar said, “I would use library skills in my career … when I read through work-related information and pick out the information I need to solve a problem.”
More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!
June 7:
We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari …
June 8:
Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!
Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.
June 12:
We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!
Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.
Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe.
June 14:
Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!
On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.
After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.
Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!