Congrats to 15 Harker seniors who were named 2015 U.S. Presidential Scholars Competition candidates and one who was named a semifinalist.
About 4,300 candidates were winnowed from the pool of 3.3 million high school students, about a 10th of 1 percent of the pool. Harker’s candidates were William Bloomquist, Jason Chu, Vivek Sriram, Juhi Gupta, Savi Joshi, Kevin Zhang, Pranav Reddy, Apoorva Rangan, Patrick Lin, Richard Gu, Neil Movva, Simran Singh, Nitya Mani, Helen Wu and Menghua Wu. Joshi was then named a semifinalist – one of only 565 nationwide. Congrats to all for this wonderful recognition! For more, go to: http://www.ed.gov/psp.
Harker alumni include four Presidential Scholars. Katie Siegle ’12 was the first Harker female honored for academic achievement. Samantha Fang ’06 was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts in 2006; Senan Ebrahim ’08 was named a Presidential Scholar in 2008; and Daniel Kim ’09 was named a Presidential Scholar in 2009.
Over the last weekend in March, Harker Latin students headed to Miramonte High School in Orinda to attend the 60th annual Junior Classical League (JCL) State Convention.
This year’s convention theme was “Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito” (“Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.” – Vergil Aeneid VI.95). At the convention, students enjoyed workshops, fellowship with Latin students from all over the state, and competitions involving many aspects of classical knowledge.
During the weekend, grade 12 student Maya Nandakumar earned the most points of anyone, with seven first place wins for a total of 17 awards. Counted among those were the individual overall awards for arts and academics, garnering her the greatest number of points in each of those single categories as well.
“This convention was really the culmination of my long journey as a classicist here at Harker. When I started back in the sixth grade, I remember being enamored with the attitude and passion of the attendees, and that really sparked my curiosity for Latin. Since then, pretty much every activity I’ve been a part of has, in one way or another, been a branch of my zeal for the ancient world,” recalled Nandakumar.
“I knew that for my final convention, I wanted to leave this organization with no regrets, and for me that manifested in entering nearly every competition I could. There were so many contests that I’d always wanted to try and never had the courage to. Knowing that this was my last chance pushed me to my limits during the two days of convention. Overall, the experience was incredibly bittersweet, but the perfect way to finish my time here,” she added.
Harker is sending two veterans to the USA Computing Olympiad summer training camp. Lawrence Li, grade 11, and David Zhu, grade 10, are among 24 selected nationwide to attend the camp. Li attended the camp in 2013 and Zhu in 2014.
Selected for their outstanding performance on USACO contests throughout the 2014-15 season, Li and Zhu will be challenged by advanced instructional material provided by the USACO staff. The training camp will run from May 20-30. Participants will be competing for four spots on the final team that will represent the USA at the 2015 International Olympiad in Informatics in Kazakhstan. Here is full list of those selected to attend the camp.
Heartiest congratulations to Lawrence and David! Good luck at the camp!
A group of Harker’s upper school students recently attended the Bioengineering High School Competition (BioEHSC) at UC Berkeley. The annual research and design competition is intended for high school students interested in the fast-growing fields of biotechnology and bioengineering.
The Harker team (Natalie Simonian, grade 11, Natasha Santhanam, grade 11, Madhu Karra, grade 11, Taylor Iantosca, grade 10, and Uma Rao, grade 10) received second place in the category of Biomedical Devices for their project, titled “Automatic Negative Feedback Loop for Amyloidosis.”
The competition, which takes place each spring, is hosted by the UC Berkeley Bioengineering Honor Society. It included poster sessions from schools across the Bay Area, presentations from Berkeley undergraduate researchers and a keynote address from Dr. Jacob Corn, scientific director at the Innovative Genomics Initiative (IGI).
The IGI Lab is composed of branch laboratories at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, which address the IGI’s primary research focus into drug discovery, regulatory variation and treatments for pediatric disease, as well as applications in gene editing.
To help high school students explore bioengineering, BioEHSC asks them to identify a problem in medicine and then design a bioengineering solution in just six weeks. Contestants collaborate in groups (of four or five) and receive mentorship. After the six weeks, the students create a research poster about their problem, proposed solution and analysis of potential concerns. They present their findings for evaluation to a panel of professors and graduate students during the final research symposium.
Upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi mentored Harker’s team. “The students did an amazing job of finding creative technical solutions to a medical problem. This involved doing a lot of background research and learning about a wide array of advanced bioengineering concepts and techniques. I really enjoyed meeting with the team because they were so full of great ideas and had a genuine willingness to work hard, learn and innovate. A great learning experience for all!” he said.
During the course of this year, Harker’s upper school journalism students have won a number of prestigious awards. Here is a look back at honors the students have received from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and the Journalism Education Association (JEA).
Of special note were first-place wins from the CSPA by seniors Apoorva Rangan, Jessica (“Fred”) Chang and Priscilla Pan. Working together, Chang and Pan took first place in the video feature package for a piece about making mint chocolate soufflé, titled “In a Nutshell: Mint Chocolate Souffle.”
Ellen Austin, who directs Harker’s upper school journalism program, noted that the video was very innovative, and on the cusp of big trends both culturally and journalistically. “The fact that this won over other more ‘traditional’ videos is a mark of the innovative approach they are taking,” she said.
The CSPA is an international student press association whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisors at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques and award programs. CSPA is affiliated with Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
The NSPA is a nonprofit organization for high school and secondary school publications in the United States. The association is membership-based and annually hosts high school journalism conventions across the country. The NSPA is considered to be one of the most prestigious award bodies in high school journalism, comparable to the Pulitzer Prize.
The National High School Journalism Convention is a semiannual gathering of high school journalists and advisors sponsored by the JEA and the NSPA. The associations partner to prepare hundreds of practical and professional learning sessions.
Below are the 2014-15 awards received by Harker’s journalism students:
Publication Awards
CSPA Silver Crown, April 2015: Presented for the year’s work for Winged Post 2013-14: Nikil Dilip, then grade 12, and Meena Chetty, then grade 12 (editor-in-chiefs)
Winged Post, Third Place, Broadsheet 17+ pages, Best of Show, Denver, Spring JEA/NSPA National Journalism Conference
Aquila, Fourth Place, Publication Website Small School, Best of Show, Denver, Spring JEA/NSPA, National Journalism Conference
Winged Post, Seventh Place, Broadsheet 17+ pages, Best of Show, Washington D.C., Fall National Journalism Conference, November 2014
Individual Awards
NSPA Story of The Year (presented November 2014): Mariam Sulakian, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Although all middle school Latin students took the National Latin Exam and National Mythology Exam, there were some who wanted a bigger challenge and participated in four optional contests. There will be a lot of jingling as they walk away from Junior Classical League Awards on May 21!
National Classical Etymology Exam (Greek and Latin roots of English words), Novice level (grades 8 and below)
Bronze medals: Cynthia Chen, Avi Gulati, Eileen Li, all grade 7
Silver medals: Arushee Bhoja, Taylor Lam, both grade 8
Gold medals: Arohee Bhoja, George Wehner, both grade 6; Jack Hansen, Jin Tuan, Angele Yang, all grade 7; Nikhil Dharmaraj, Ayush Pancholy, Akshay Ravoor, Ashwin Reddy, Alexander Young, all grade 8
National Roman Civilization Exam (history and culture), Novice level (grades 8 and below)
Bronze medals: Akshay Ravoor, Ashwin Reddy, Alexander Young, all grade 8
National Latin Vocabulary Exam
Level 1/2, all grade 6:
Bronze: Saloni Shah
Silver: Akshay Manglik
Gold: Arohee Bhoja, Annamma Vazhaeparambil
Level 1, all grade 7, except where noted:
Silver: Avi Gulati, Jack Hansen, Allison Jia
Gold: Eileen Li, Kalyan Narayanan, Jin Tuan, George Wehner, grade 6
Level 2, all grade 8:
Silver: Akshay Ravoor, Ayush Pancholy
Gold: Nikhil Dharmaraj
Medusa Mythology Exam (This year’s theme was “Monstra in Corporibus,” mythological monsters sorted by body type)
Corona Olivae: George Wehner, grade 6; Jasmine Wiese, Jack Hansen, both grade 7; Allison Cartee, grade 8
Corona Laurea: Akshay Manglik, Annnamma Vazhaeparambil, both grade 6; Katelyn Chen, grade 7; Akshay Ravoor, Timothy Chang, Sara Min, all grade 8
Bronze: Allison Jia, Kyle Li, both grade 7; Alexander Young, grade 8
Harker’s team returned home after a very respectable showing at the Harvard Pre-Collegiate Economics Challenge! Ameek Singh, grade 11, placed second in individual testing out of 120 students, while the team made the final eight out of more than 30 teams, said advisor Sam Lepler. Following the competition, the team adjourned for Thai food near Harvard Square, where they were joined by four alumni, Olivia Zhu ’11, Vikram Sundar ’14, Angela Ma ’14 and Ashvin Swaminathan ’13, with Ramya Rangan ’12 enroute.
The Hurrikeynes are going to New York! The team, comprising seniors Aaron Huang, Ashwath Thirumalai, Leo Yu, Rohith Kuditipudi and Steven Wang, was named one of the top four teams in the nation in the National Economics Challenge, administered by the Council for Economic Education. This is the most prestigious high school economics competition, with more than 10,000 students participating nationwide, said Sam Lepler, economics teacher and the team’s coach. Harker won the Northern California finals on April 7; our championship team, the “Hurrikeynes,” then competed against all the other state winners in an exam on April 14. The Hurrikeynes are one of just four top U.S. teams moving on to the National Championships in New York. The team earned an all-expense paid trip to NYC to compete for the No. 1 spot! “I am so incredibly proud of them and so excited for the finals!” said Lepler. “Yay!!”
Harker students Haris Hosseini and Alexander Young, both grade 8, received certificates of recognition for superior writing ability from the National Council of Teachers of English Promising Young Writers Program. Out of 191 students nominated nationwide, only 45 received this honor; of those recognized, only four students were from California. Each student submitted two pieces of writing, which were read by national judges. Papers were judged on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development and style. “It is so exciting that both of our nominees were selected as California winners,” noted Patricia Lai Burrows, middle school English teacher. A complete list of winners is on the NCTE website at http://www.ncte.org/awards/student/pyw/2015. Go Writing Eagles!
The first round of the National Economics Challenge is over and Harker had a record 52 students go way beyond the required AP curriculum to participate. The top five teams in Northern California (defined as the region from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border) qualified to compete in a written and quiz bowl style competition at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Building on April 7. Three of those five teams are from Harker. The 12 Harker students advancing on are Adele Li, Anika Mohindra, Grace Guan and Abhinav Ketineni, all grade 11; Akshay Battu, Sohil Patel, Sorjo Banerjee, Suraj Jagadeesh, all grade 11; and Rohith Kuditipudi, Aaron Huang, Leo Yu and Steven Wang, all grade 12.
“I am extremely excited to see how we do at the next round because the winner goes on to the National Semifinals for a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to NYC to compete in the televised finals!” said economics teacher Sam Lepler.