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
In late June, a team of Harker rising juniors took second place overall in the 9/10 level at the national TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) competition in Grapevine, Texas. The team of Kai-Siang Ang, Neymika Jain, Evani Radiya-Dixit, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Arjun Subramaniam, Peter Wu and team captain David Zhu also finished second in the problem solving competition and were among the top 10 teams in the prepared presentation portion of the event. “The team had the best showing yet of any Harker team who has competed in this event,” said Harker math teacher Anthony Silk, who coached the team.
The TEAMS competition begins every year at the state level, in which students answer multiple-choice math and science questions, as well as essay questions related to the year’s chosen topic. The top three teams from each state are then invited to the national competition, which has categories for written problems, prepared presentation and problem solving.
In May, five Harker students were honored by the Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators’ 26th Annual Student Recognition Program. Held at the Morris Dailey Auditorium at San Jose State University, the awards recognition ceremony was called “Emphasizing Education, Affirming Our Future.”
In total, 336 talented and achieving students in grades 5, 6, 8 and 12 were recognized during the program. The Harker students cited for awards were Kai Due, grade 5, for student athlete; Brooklyn Cicero, grade 5, for fine arts/talent; Wynter Chaverst, grade 8 for academics/improved GPA; Jackson Williams, grade 8, for student athlete; and Christian Williams, grade 12, for academics/improved GPA.
The annual event is dedicated to the pursuit of cultural and educational excellence. It aims to encourage student achievement, affirm pride among African-American students, and recognize the support of family and community in their lives.
Four Harker students were recently honored for their stellar performance on the National Latin Exam, sponsored by the American Classical League and Junior Classical League. Recent graduate Richard Gu, rising seniors Allison Wang and Elisabeth Siegel and rising junior Venkat Sankar each received a special book award for earning gold medals on at least four Latin National Exams in the last five years.
The National Latin Exam, administered since 1978, is a 40-question, 45-minute test with seven different proficiency levels, containing questions on topics such as grammar, reading comprehension, mythology and history. Nearly 141,000 students took the exam between February and March of this year.
The American Scholastic Mathematics Association recently published the results of its annual mathematics contest, and Harker earned first place in the senior division (grades 9-12) and first place with special merit in the junior/intermediate division (grades 7-9). The contest is done by mail during the fall semester. Each participating school receives packages of question sets, which are opened on designated dates over a period of months. Students have 35 minutes to answer each question. Answers are scored once the last examination is administered. Schools from all around the world participated, including China, Czech Republic, Bahrain, Vietnam, Kenya, Kuwait, Indonesia, Austria and Poland.
As part of this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program, an academic competition for recognition and university scholarships dating back to 1955, about 7,600 high school students are expected to win National Merit Scholarships, corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards and college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards worth nearly $34 million. The awards are granted on the basis of academic standing; standardized test scores; community service, including relevant extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions; recommendations by school officials; and student essays.
Among those in line to receive one-time $2,500 National Merit Scholarships are Harker’s own Jason Chu (astrophysics), Rahul Jayaraman (astrophysics), Andrew Jin (computer science), Cindy Liu (bioengineering), Suzy Lou (mathematics), Nitya Mani (mathematics), Ayush Midha (medicine), Vivek Sriram (bioinformatics), Helen Wu (neuroscience), Menghua Wu (computer science) and Samyukta Yagati (computer science). Meanwhile, Sachin Peddada (medicine) received an annual corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship courtesy of Siemens Corp. (these awards range from $500-$10,000, with amount to be determined). Allen Huang (biomedical engineering) and Juhi Muthal (business) were granted annual college-sponsored Merit Scholarships from the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago, respectively (these awards range from $500-$2,000, with amount to be determined).
Business Insider’s list of the year’s 20 most impressive high school graduates is hot off the press – and it includes four Harker alums.
In the case of our recent grads, their continued academic success – resulting in acceptances to some of the nation’s top research universities – is matched only by their commitment to furthering the future of health care. With a deeply ingrained foundation of community service, civic engagement and social justice, the high-flying foursome is giving back in a big way.
A freshman-year battle with hypothyroidism and a passion for mitigating global health inequalities led National High School Journal of Science peer reviewer Samantha Madala to establish the Healthy Scholars Foundation, a nonprofit that removes health-related barriers to education around the world through screening, treatment, awareness and research. Since its founding in 2013, Healthy Scholars has received a $250,000 multiyear grant from The Hans Foundation, raised more than $200,000 and provided free health screenings to nearly 10,000 schoolchildren in India.
Accepted into the University of California San Diego Medical Scholars Program for a combined B.S./M.D., Madala’s professional experience includes internships in neurobiology, immunology and health policy at Stanford University’s School of Medicine as well as the co-authoring of an abstract for the world-renowned Endocrine Society. She is a member of the National Honor Society and the recipient of Harker’s Love of Learning Award and Mission of the School Award.
Harvard University-bound (computer science and biology) Andrew Jin created a machine-learning algorithm that could help researchers better understand human evolution and potentially develop new gene therapies, vaccines and treatments for disorders like schizophrenia, earning him the first place Medal of Distinction for Global Good and a cash prize of $150,000 at the Intel Science Talent Search 2015, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious pre-college science and math competition and a program of Society for Science & the Public.
No newcomer to the awards circuit, Jin previously won second place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the largest pre-college scientific research event in the world, and third place in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the flagship initiative of the Siemens Foundation. He has secured a summer machine-learning internship at Facebook, based in Menlo Park, where he will assist the online social networking service’s search team.
Like Jin, Rohith Kuditipudi was named a finalist at this year’s Intel Science Talent Search based on his scientific research and overall potential as a future leader of the scientific community. His project, “Network-Based Integration of High-Throughput Gene Expression and Methylation Data Reveals New Insights into NAFLD Progression,” involved collaborating with researchers at the University of California San Diego to examine the evolution of fatty liver disease and analyze valuable data linking the disease to more serious afflictions such as liver cancer. He was also recognized among the top 10 competitors in both the Harvard Pre-Collegiate Economics Challenge and the Stanford Math Tournament.
Kuditipudi co-founded the India Literacy Project and volunteers at Breakthrough Silicon Valley, where he tutors underprivileged children in math. This fall, he will enter Duke University as one of just 15 Angier B. Duke Scholars, studying a combination of his three favorite disciplines: mathematics, economics and computer science.
Yale University-bound (pre-med) Daniela Lee and her 2014 Google Science Fair project partner, Sadhika Malladi, grade 11, developed a noninvasive imaging system for predicting test results in triple-negative breast cancer patients, leading to their standing as one of the top 15 global finalists representing the United States, Australia, Canada, England, France, India, Ireland, Russia and Ukraine.
A research intern at Stanford University’s School of Medicine for the past two years, Lee presented additional findings that could help to decrease treatment time and increase patient comfort at the 2014 Focused Ultrasound Symposium, where she was recognized by Vice President Joe Biden as the only high school student speaker.
Business Insider editors solicited nominees for this list via a post and sought out notable students for consideration via news searches, said Melissa Stanger, associate editor of lists for Business Insider. “We were also surprised by the incredible range of talent at The Harker School,” Stanger said. “I think this is the first year we’ve had more than two high school graduates from the same school appear on our list!” Stanger noted those listed were “chosen for their above-average accomplishments in a number of fields,” and in finalizing the list, they strove to diversify the selections to include those “doing impressive things in science, the arts, philanthropy, tech, etc.”
Sixth grader Srinath Somasundaram came in third place in the inaugural Zeidman Awards for his engineering research project titled “A Novel Design and Evaluation of an Air Cushioning Mechanism for Helmets to Minimize Impact Acceleration on the Head.”
The awards were created to recognize students for their advanced knowledge and outstanding achievement in the fields of electrical engineering and computer science. Engineer-scientist-entrepreneur Bob Zeidman, president and founder of Zeidman Consulting, a contract research and development firm based in Cupertino, presented six Bay Area middle school students with the awards during the Santa Clara Valley Science & Engineering Fair Association’s Synopsys Science & Technology Championship at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.
The competition was stiff, with students from middle schools throughout the region presenting original solutions designed to address serious issues, including Alzheimer’s disease, autism, diabetes and visual impairment.Awards included cash prizes and signed copies of Zeidman’s latest book “Just Enough Electronics to Impress Your Friends and Colleagues,” based on his popular seminar “Electrical Engineering for Non-Electrical Engineers.” Hurrah to Srinath!
Nitya Mani, grade 12, earned first place in the Karl Menger Memorial Awards for the second year in a row! The award was presented by the American Math Society at the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) in mid-May. Mani received the first-place award of $2,000 for her project, titled “Characterizing the Constructible N-Division Points of the Rational C-Hypocycloids through Straightedge and Compass Constructions.”
“In her project Nitya investigated the important question of constructibility of division points on plane curves and showed that, for any integer N, the N division points of any rational c-hypocycloid are constructible with an unmarked straightedge and compass, given a pre-drawn hypocycloid. She also characterized the constructibility of N division points of a tricuspoid in the absence of a pre-drawn hypocycloid. Nitya’s original and very impressive work uses many advanced results and techniques from several areas of mathematics, including Galois theory, abstract algebra and algebraic number theory,” said Menger awards chair Mihai Stoiciu. See more at: http://www.ams.org/news?news_id=2685 (Photo is also from that site.)
This report provided by DECA press officer Vanessa Tyagi, grade 9
From April 24-29, 28 students from The Harker School DECA chapter traveled to the International Career Development Conference in Orlando, Fla. During the four event-filled days, the 18 students who qualified at California’s State Career Development Conference competed, while the remaining students attended the Emerging Leader Series.
Of our 10 teams that competed, four placed in the top 20 and qualified for the final round of competition. The finalists are as follows:
Alexis Gauba, grade 10, Business Service Management Individual Series
Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari and Glenn Reddy, both grade 12, Marketing Communications Team Decision Making
Ankur Karwal, Sanil Rajput and Ameek Singh, all grade 11, Stock Market Game.
Vanessa Tyagi and Rahul Mehta, both grade 9, Sports and Entertainment Team Decision Making
Shannon Hong and Sophia Luo, both grade 11, Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making (finalists for the written exam)
The first major event of the conference was the Finish Line/DECA Dash 5K Run/Walk on Saturday morning, in which our entire chapter participated. Students spent Saturday at Universal Studios and most of Tuesday at Disney World, after the final round of competition.
Testing took place on Sunday morning, and Monday was competition day. Following full days of testing, competition and leadership academies, students attended DECA parties at Disney World and Universal Studios on Sunday and Monday evenings. The final round of competition took place on Tuesday. The four qualifying teams found out they had advanced to the final round on Tuesday morning, at the mini awards session.
Students who applied and were accepted for leadership academies attended the Emerging Leader Series all day on Sunday and Monday. Harker had students in Thrive, Elevate and Ignite, three of the five offered academies. By attending these programs students were inspired and empowered to take leadership in DECA and also had the chance to network with DECA members from all around the world.
At the Grand Award Ceremony, Karwal, Singh and Rajput were called up on stage and recognized for placing in the top 10 in the Stock Market Game. Additionally, Reddy and Logan Drazovich, grade 11, were recognized as the National Finish Line Challenge winners.
“It was an amazing feeling, seeing all of the hard work of the past few months coming to fruition. I was thinking about how everything came together and then started focusing on mentally preparing myself for the finals as I had my final presentation 15 minutes after I found out, said Gauba who was in the Top 20 in Business Service Management Individual Series.