In early November, students Patrick Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 9, traveled to Beijing, China, to participate in the World Mathematics Team Championship (WMTC) as members of the U.S. team, which took third place in the middle division. Both students also won individual silver medals for their outstanding performances. Lin and Thirumalai competed in the middle school division due to the competition’s age requirements. Lin was invited to the WMTC by the Berkeley Math Circle, a program for Bay Area high school and middle school students that helps foster youth interest in mathematics and prepares them for contests such as the WMTC.
The Harker School has been recognized as one of the top 100 schools in the nation for speech and debate activities, according to the National Forensics League. Of the more than 3,000 qualified schools, Harker ranks 19th. That number is based on “student participation and achievement in speech and debate activities,” said the NFL. Carol Green, the communications studies department chair for grades 6-12, said, “This is a huge honor and shows the strength of Harker whose overall 9-12 population is much smaller than many of the top schools.”
Butch Keller, upper school head, presented an award to the department that was accepted by Jonathan Peele, the director of congressional debate and individual events, and Greg Achten, the upper school debate teacher.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Harker’s Latin program is going strong, and students have an annual event at which to showcase their knowledge in the National Junior Classical League Convention.
In July, Harker students, along with John Hawley and Lisa Masoni, upper and middle school Latin teachers, traveled to Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Ky., for this year’s convention. The convention is attended by more than 1,000 students every year who compete in multiple academic and creative arts contests, and several Harker students had top 10 placements in multiple categories.
Nik Datuashvili, grade 11, took second place in four categories: ancient geography IV, Greek derivatives, Latin derivatives and reading comprehension. He also earned fourth place in academic heptathlon and eighth place in Latin grammar advanced, Latin vocabulary IV and Certamen advanced level.
Meawhile, junior Richard Fan took eighth in Hellenic history IV, ninth in Greek derivatives IV and Roman history IV and eighth in Certamen advanced.
Sean Fernandes, grade 11, reached ninth place in ancient geography and 10th in reading comprehension prose level IV.
Finishing fifth in girls dramatic interpretation and Latin oratory III was Zina Jawadi, grade 10, who also took sixth place in girls Latin prose.
Grade 12 student Jessica Lin took first place in Roman life V+ and 10th in the grade 11 girls essay category.
Finally, junior Sean Nierat earned fourth place in grade 10 traditional photography.
Earlier today, students Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both grade 12, spoke at a special keynote lunch at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York City. They appeared with Mike Haas, founder of the Alliance for Climate Education, which organizes assemblies at high schools to promote climate science and bring awareness to the current climate crisis.
The students talked about how seeing an ACE assembly in their freshman year inspired them to take action and start thinking of ways to save energy at Harker. “We thought about how we could save energy at our school and noticed areas of error, such as air conditioning running in the gym every weekend,” Indukuri said. The students then talked about how they applied for an ACE grant to install smart meters, among other measures, on the Saratoga campus that would track energy uses and help identify areas where it could improve. Their solutions combined to save the school approximately $20,000 annually. Furthermore, the students said, they started a program to help get smart meters installed at other schools, even traveling to the White House to meet with Steven Chu, United States energy secretary, to discuss expanding the program nationwide.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both grade 12, will appear at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City on Tuesday, and will be speaking at a keynote lunch with Mike Haas, founder of the Alliance for Climate Education. A live webcast of the event will start at noon Eastern time (9 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday.
The students will also be interviewed by “Time” magazine’s Bryan Walsh, and have been attending other related events in the city for climate science week. They are posting updates through Smart Powered’s Twitter page with the hashtag #CGI2011.
Two more Harker graduates, Arthi Kumar and April Luo, have been awarded National Merit College-Sponsored Scholarships. Kumar received her scholarship from Vanderbilt University and Luo received hers from the University of Southern California. These scholarships will provide between $500 and $2,000 each year for up to four years at the undergraduate level.
[Updated: Jan. 3, 2012]
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NSMC) recently announced the winners for 2011, and 17 Harker seniors were named winners in this year’s contest. Samir Asthana, Hassaan Ebrahim, Victoria Liang and Zachary Mank all received college-sponsored scholarships from the University of Southern California, while Roshni Bhatnagar was awarded a college-sponsored scholarship from Northwestern University. These scholarships are awarded by officials representing colleges or universities that students have indicated is their first choice.
Harker students who have been awarded National Merit $2,500 scholarships are Justine Liu, Kevin Tran, Kiran Vodrahalli, Susan Tu, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Richard Chiou, Shreya Nathan, Benjamin Tien, Josephine Chen, Jerry Sun, Jason Young, Olivia Zhu and Nilesh Murali.
Jason Young received a Nelson F. Peterson Scholarship sponsored by by Hoffman-La Rouche, which will provide $2,500 per year for four years.
More than 1.5 million high school students participate in the National Merit Scholarship Program every year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Of these, about 8,400 – less than one percent – become winners.
March 2009
In only the second year that Harker has sent teams for all three levels, Harker’s Japanese program swept all three first-place team prizes at the National Japan Bowl in Washington, D.C., over spring break. The top-level team and their teacher were awarded a 10-day trip to Japan this summer where their itinerary includes the honor of meeting Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado.
The Japan Bowl is an annual team competition for high school students across the U.S. studying Japanese as their foreign language. There are three levels of competition – II, III and IV, with level IV being the most challenging – and three students per team. The competition tests not only the students’ language skills but also their knowledge of history, geography, politics, current events, U.S.-Japan relations and variety of cultural aspects such as arts, festivals, religions, pop culture, etiquette and gestures.
“Although it is a very challenging competition, we have shown very steady improvement every year,” said Masako Onakado, Japanese teacher. “Last year, we earned second place in both level II and level III and fourth place in level IV, which was our best record until then. Earning the first place in all levels in this 17-year-old competition this year was truly remarkable.”
Chris Nikoloff, head of school, also noted, “This is an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to the students and thanks to Masako for all of her efforts on their behalf.”
Student winners were: Level IV Sarah Wang, grade 11, team captain; Roslyn Li, grade 11 and Kevin Wang, grade 12. Level III Kelly Chen, grade 11, team captain; Jerry Sun, grade 10 and Katie Liang, grade 10. Level II Nirupama Gadagottu, grade 12, team captain; Tiffany Jang, grade 9 and Victoria Liang, grade10.
The task of winning a single national championship in debate is demanding, but putting together victories in back-to-back years is particularly rare. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what the 23 middle school students who traveled to Dallas, Texas, last week for the 12th annual National Junior Forensic League National Championship Tournament managed to do. For the second year running, the team was recognized as one of the five Schools of Excellence across all of the debate formats offered at the tournament.
Pranav Reddy, grade 8, also extended a streak for the school by bringing home a national championship, this time in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. Last year’s title came in Public Forum Debate, when two Harker pairs reached the final round and were declared co-champions. Reddy debated Resolved: When forced to choose, a just government ought to prioritize universal human rights over its national interest.
In Congressional Debate Aditya Dhar, grade 6, took third place honors nationally. When not busy winning the Lincoln-Douglas title, Reddy tackled the challenges of Congress as well, posting a fifth place result. Jai Ahuja, grade 8, and Misha Tseitlin, grade 6, joined their teammates in the Congress finals, placing them among the top 24 at the tournament.
The team of Azhar Huda and Vamsi Gadiraju, both grade 8, reached octafinals (top 16), while the team of Sophia Shatas, grade 8, and Sorjo Banerjee, grade 7, advanced to quarterfinals (top 8) of Public Forum Debate. Students participating in Public Forum considered the topic, Resolved: That the United States should intervene in another nation’s struggle for democracy.
Middle school director of forensics Karina Momary led her students to these accomplishments in her first year of coaching. “My strategy all year has been to have our middle school debaters compete against high school students, and I think that was a significant factor in our success this week,” explained Momary. The middle school team was also supported by the presence of Greg Achten, the upper school director of Policy Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and assistant coach Quinn Buniel.
This year marked the first time that the middle school NJFL National Tournament was held simultaneously with NFL Nationals for high schools. When not competing in their own rounds, all 23 middle school students had the valuable opportunity to learn by observing the high school debates.
Third grade students earned a Regional Award in the recent Continental Mathematics League (CML) contest. This yearly contest, which consists of three separate meets, gives students the chance to compete in mathematical problem-solving against a worldwide group of third graders from participating schools.
This is the fourth year Harker’s grade 3 team earned first place in the region, which includes 15 U.S. states as well as the countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
For each meet, the six highest scores are sent in as a team score, thus the team members can change from month to month. The contest, which consists of six questions per meet, was held January through March, and three students tied for the top score for Harker, at 15 out of a total of 18 possible points.
Students earning medals this year as the top scoring students were Andrew Cheplyansky, Naviya Kapadia and Nevin Liang. Second-place students who earned certificates of achievement were Anvi Banga, Matthew Jin, Eileen Li, Sachin Shah and Gautham Viswanathan. Several students earned perfect scores in one of the three meets, including Cheplyansky, Kapadia, Benjamin MacDonald, Viswanathan and Angele Yang.
Congratulations to these students, who deserve to be recognized for their strong approaches to problem solving! This is the seventh year we have participated in the contest. Last year, grades 4 and 5 began participating as well.
Harker’s MathCounts team, Celine Liang, grade 7 and eighth graders Matthew Huang, Cindy Liu and Andrew Zhang, placed first at the State MathCounts competition held at Stanford in mid-March. The Harker team was declared California State Champion, beating even the Cupertino Middle School team, the Santa Clara Chapter champion at the competition held on Feb. 12. David Lin, grade 8, participated as an independent qualifier and also did a fine job, said Vandana Kadam, MathCounts coach and middle school mathematics department chair.
Liang placed third following the countdown round of the competition, missing first place by a single point. There are only four students from the entire state who make the team which represents California at the national competition to be held May 5-8 in Washington, D.C., and Liang is one of the four students on this prestigious team. Three of the four top finishers came from the same chapter as Harker (Santa Clara Chapter).
Out of 155 students participating, Liang was third, Huang placed sixth, Liu placed 11th, Lin placed 12th and Zhang placed 28th. Kennedy, Redwood and Miller schools fielded extremely strong teams and Harker beat defending state champion William Hopkins School from Fremont, and also past champions Miller and Redwood, to clinch the number one spot.
Fourteen different chapters from Northern California participated and a similar number of students from 12 Southern California chapters participated in the same contest held simultaneously at University of California, Irvine. The top 10 students were recognized at each of these venues.
After the main event, two students each tied with 46 points (perfect score) and 45 points, so runoffs were held for each of the top four slots. Liang had to go head to head with her competitor to gain the number three spot; her competitor dropped to fourth place. Harker’s Huang barely missed making the team with his sixth place finish. The top four finishers will go to nationals, held in May. Kadam will be there, too, as California State Coach.
“The title of California State Champions is well deserved for each one of them. This is an incredible achievement for the students and for the school,” said Tim McCarthy, coordinator of the Santa Clara Chapter and the Northern California competition.
This story was originally published in the Spring 2010 Harker Quarterly
On Jan. 13, Intel announced four Harker seniors had made it to the semifinals of the Intel Science Talent Search: Namrata Anand, Vishesh Jain, Kevin Zhang and Andrew Zhou. These four became the latest in a long line of Harker students, 17 since 2006, to reach the upper ranks of the competition.
Two weeks later, Anand was named a national finalist, the second since Harker began participating in the contest four years earlier. The first, Yi Sun ‘06, went on to place second in the national competition. For her efforts, Anand was awarded $7,500 and earned the trip to Washington, D.C., to compete among the nation’s top 40 contestants for a $100,000 grand prize. Intel is just part of the equation, though.
Just months earlier, Alex Han, Gr. 12, was announced as a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Since Christopher Sutardja ’06 was named a regional semifinalist in his senior year, Harker has produced regional semifinalists every year in the Siemens competition, which annually receives thousands of entries. Both Han and Anand will display their projects at the Harker Research Symposium in April.
“It’s hard to really describe the number of hours that students invest in these research projects,” said Katherine Schafer, upper school biology teacher and head of the research program. “The students work full time throughout most of the summer conducting the actual research.” She noted that some students continue their research into the school year. Rising seniors entering the Siemens competition usually spend the first two weeks preparing for the entry deadline at the beginning of October.
“The papers are 18 pages in length and require extensive library research on their specific fields and often countless hours of analysis,” Schafer added. “Many of my experiments involved treating cells and observing them over a time course, so I spent a great deal of time in the culture room and worked about 50 to 60 hours per week over a 10-week period,” Han estimated.
Because of the work research students perform day to day for their classes, these tasks may actually be less daunting to them than for other high school students. “I think the research these students are doing and the skills they are developing by communicating the results of their research gives these students a big advantage over most students entering college,” Schafer said. “They have an idea of how much work is involved in research and can do things that many students entering graduate school cannot do.”
Harker’s success in these and other competitions is also due in no small part to the mentors with whom the students work while researching for and assembling their projects. Since Sutardja first enlisted the help of Gerald Fuller, a professor from Stanford University, mentors have played a crucial part in the success of projects produced by Harker students. Fuller mentors students to this day.
While working on his project for the Siemens competition, Han was mentored by Dr. Jonathan Hardy at Stanford University. “I was very thankful that he gave me the freedom to design and pursue my project independently from those ongoing in the lab, because I gained a consummate understanding and mastery of the research process while also having the opportunity to make a personal contribution to medical research,” Han said.
Raja Guhathakurta, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, headed up the mentoring effort for three of Harker’s most recent Intel semifinalists. He and three graduate students helped the Harker students gather data for projects that covered the Andromeda galaxy. In the last decade, Guhathakurta has served as a research mentor “to scores of high school students,” he said.
Guhathakurta became involved with Harker after meeting science department chair Anita Chetty early last year. “It was a pleasure to work with such bright and motivated students,” he said. “We would frequently sit down to brainstorm ideas for solving specific problems and that was always fun.”
The biggest benefit Guhathakurta thought students gained from the experience was the ability to approach abstract problems. “In research, the act of looking for the answer to a particular question can often lead to more questions instead of a definite answer,” he said. “This can lead to great progress in thinking and knowledge,” he said. “Part of this experience is imbibing the culture and sociology of a particular area of science, in this case astronomy.”
Chetty said it is also important for students to witness the day-to-day life of a scientist, which can provide invaluable insight into their choice of a possible career. “Sometimes research is not very glamorous,” she quipped. “It’s many, many hours. It’s very repetitive. It can be frustrating. You can find out on Friday that you made a mistake on the previous Tuesday, and that’s why your results all failed.”
The thrill of discovery, however, is what makes the hard work all worth it. “I think that’s the beauty of the mentor-student relationship,” Chetty said. “It’s the long-term commitment, the enthusiasm, the excitement of discovering something together.”
Mentors are not necessarily people from outside the school. Sushant Sundaresh ’08, who was a Siemens regional semifinalist as a senior, worked with upper school biology teacher Matthew Harley, who according to Chetty spent “hundreds of hours” with Sundaresh to help compile data for his project.
Science department teachers also coach students on how to compile the results of their research and communicate them in papers and oral presentations. There are, of course, many research projects produced by students each year that are worthy of recognition, whether or not they earned placement in contests. The Harker Research Symposium, which takes place this year on April 10, has and will continue to provide a forum for many of these projects to receive well-deserved attention (see page 17 for symposium details).
Since its inception in 2006, the symposium, the brainchild of Chetty, has been modeled after the environment of an authentic research conference, and is open to students in Gr. 6-12. For many students, the symposium is an opportunity to share the results of their labor with fellow students and their peers outside of school. The symposium has also gained recognition and prestige for the guest speakers it has attracted over the years.
This year’s symposium, which pays tribute to the medical devices industry, will feature materials scientist Chris Gilbert as a keynote speaker. Gilbert has been involved with taking a product from development to approval by the Food and Drug administration, and eventually to manufacturing and sales.
“He was involved in all of the parts of the process involved beyond the research part, beyond the discovery,” Chetty said. Several exhibitors will also be visiting Harker during the symposium, displaying various medical technologies such as an ultrasound machine and an artificial heart valve, among others.
In addition, visitors to the symposium will have a chance to see Harker’s scientific talents shine. “I just think that the caliber of the student presentations continues to improve,” said Chetty. “As we’re reaching down into the middle school, the younger students are learning about research. We’re seeing an escalation in the caliber of the presentations.” For more information on Harker’s science program, visit http://skylark.harker.org/hno/backups and search for “science.”