By Jenny Achten, Speech and Debate Department Chair
The Harker speech and debate team has continued its winning streak this winter with successes at a host of tournaments across the nation. Students traveled to tournaments across California as well as in Illinois, Georgia, Arizona and Florida. Harker is having an especially strong season and we are proud of the success of all of the students.
In early November, students attended a tournament at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles. Sachin Shah, grade 11, was in the semi-finals of Lincoln-Douglas debate. Kelly Shen, grade 12, also made it to elimination rounds in Lincoln-Douglas. Anuhsa Kuppahally, grade 12, Maddie Huynh, grade 11, Andy Lee, grade 10 and Deven Shah, grade 9, all qualified for elimination rounds in policy debate.
At the Glenbrooks tournament in Chicago, our speech and congress students shined in late November. Haris Hosseini, grade 12, was first place in original oratory. Nikki Solanki, grade 11, was fifth place program oral interpretation and made it to semi-finals in dramatic interpretation. Jason Lin, grade 10; David Feng, grade 11; Andrew Sun, grade 10; and Nathan Ohana, grade 10, all made it to the semi-final round of congressional debate.
Students also won multiple awards at local league tournaments throughout the area. Meghna Phalke, grade 12, was a finalist in original oratory. In congressional debate tournaments Tiffany Zhao, grade 11, and Nakul Bajaj, grade 11, both placed second, Brandon Lin, grade 11, was third, while Andrew Lu, grade 10, and Aaditya Gulati, grade 9, both placed fifth.
Travel continued to the College Preparatory School in Oakland in late December where Akshay Manglik, grade 10, made it to the octo-finals in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Sachin Shah, Shen and Anshul Reddy, grade 9, also made it to elimination rounds of Lincoln-Douglas.
At the Arizona State University tournament in early January Sachin Shah, reached the octofinals in Lincoln-Douglas debate while Julia Biswas, grade 10, and partner Deven Shah reached the octofinals in policy debate. In congressional debate, Sun placed fifth and Jason Huang, grade 12, also reached finals. Ashwin Rammohan, grade 12, Annie Ma, grade 11, Bajaj, Ohana and Riyaa Randhawa, grade 9, reached semifinals of congress. Additionally, Hosseini placed first in original oratory.
Students also won awards at the Sunvitational Tournament in Fort Lauderdale this January. Jason Huang, grade 12, was in semis of congressional debate. Avi Gulati, grade 11, was third in extemporaneous speaking and made it to semi-finals of original oratory. Hosseini, was third in original oratory. Solanki, was in semis of program oral interpretation.
At the Harvard Westlake Lincoln-Douglas tournament in January, Manglik made it all of the way to the semi-final round. Shen and Sachin Shah also qualified for elimination rounds.
During the same weekend as Harvard-Westlake students also competed at the James Logan tournament in Union City. Ayan Nath, grade 9, and Ellen Guo, grade 11, reached the elimination rounds; Nath was named the fourth overall speaker and partner Guo placed 14. Prerana Archaryya, grade 11, placed fifth in dramatic interpretation of literature.
Finally, at the Barkley Forum Invitational at Emory University in Atlanta, Avi Gulati placed first in original oratory and Hosseini, placed third. Sun reached the finals of congressional debate while Ma, Ohana and Bajaj reached congressional semifinals. In policy debate, Kuppahally and Huynh reached double octo-finals.
The speech and debate season will continue until June with tournaments ranging all over California as well as Dallas, Chicago, and Lexington, Kentucky.
By Jenny Achten, Speech and Debate Department Chair
The Harker speech and debate team has continued its winning streak this winter with successes at a host of tournaments across the nation. Students traveled to tournaments across California as well as in Illinois, Georgia, Arizona and Florida. Harker is having an especially strong season and we are proud of the success of all of the students.
In early November, students attended a tournament at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles. Sachin Shah, grade 11, was in the semi-finals of Lincoln-Douglas debate. Kelly Shen, grade 12, also made it to elimination rounds in Lincoln-Douglas. Anuhsa Kuppahally, grade 12, Maddie Huynh, grade 11, Andy Lee, grade 10 and Deven Shah, grade 9, all qualified for elimination rounds in policy debate.
At the Glenbrooks tournament in Chicago, our speech and congress students shined in late November. Haris Hosseini, grade 12, was first place in original oratory. Nikki Solanki, grade 11, was fifth place program oral interpretation and made it to semi-finals in dramatic interpretation. Jason Lin, grade 10; David Feng, grade 11; Andrew Sun, grade 10; and Nathan Ohana, grade 10, all made it to the semi-final round of congressional debate.
Students also won multiple awards at local league tournaments throughout the area. Meghna Phalke, grade 12, was a finalist in original oratory. In congressional debate tournaments Tiffany Zhao, grade 11, and Nakul Bajaj, grade 11, both placed second, Brandon Lin, grade 11, was third, while Andrew Lu, grade 10, and Aaditya Gulati, grade 9, both placed fifth.
Travel continued to the College Preparatory School in Oakland in late December where Akshay Manglik, grade 10, made it to the octo-finals in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Sachin Shah, Shen and Anshul Reddy, grade 9, also made it to elimination rounds of Lincoln-Douglas.
At the Arizona State University tournament in early January Sachin Shah, reached the octofinals in Lincoln-Douglas debate while Julia Biswas, grade 10, and partner Deven Shah reached the octofinals in policy debate. In congressional debate, Sun placed fifth and Jason Huang, grade 12, also reached finals. Ashwin Rammohan, grade 12, Annie Ma, grade 11, Bajaj, Ohana and Riyaa Randhawa, grade 9, reached semifinals of congress. Additionally, Hosseini placed first in original oratory.
Students also won awards at the Sunvitational Tournament in Fort Lauderdale this January. Jason Huang, grade 12, was in semis of congressional debate. Avi Gulati, grade 11, was third in extemporaneous speaking and made it to semi-finals of original oratory. Hosseini, was third in original oratory. Solanki, was in semis of program oral interpretation.
At the Harvard Westlake Lincoln-Douglas tournament in January, Manglik made it all of the way to the semi-final round. Shen and Sachin Shah also qualified for elimination rounds.
During the same weekend as Harvard-Westlake students also competed at the James Logan tournament in Union City. Ayan Nath, grade 9, and Ellen Guo, grade 11, reached the elimination rounds; Nath was named the fourth overall speaker and partner Guo placed 14. Prerana Archaryya, grade 11, placed fifth in dramatic interpretation of literature.
Finally, at the Barkley Forum Invitational at Emory University in Atlanta, Avi Gulati placed first in original oratory and Hosseini, placed third. Sun reached the finals of congressional debate while Ma, Ohana and Bajaj reached congressional semifinals. In policy debate, Kuppahally and Huynh reached double octo-finals.
The speech and debate season will continue until June with tournaments ranging all over California as well as Dallas, Chicago, and Lexington, Kentucky.
Four upper school students were recently selected to be members of California All-State Honor Ensembles, and will perform at next week’s California All-State Music Education Conference, Feb. 14-17 in Fresno. Clarinetist Allison Yen, grade 11, and string bassist Anika Fuloria, grade 10, will both perform with Symphonic Band. Junior Kai-Ming Ang will play French horn for the Concert Band and cellist Rachel Broweleit, also a junior, will perform with the Symphony Orchestra. All four students are members of the upper school’s Harker School Orchestra, directed by Dave Hart.
Senior Kelsey Wu was recently selected to be a part of Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artists Program, which connects young Bay Area jazz talents with mentorship and performance opportunities with professional musicians. Wu, who performs with The Harker School Jazz Band and the show choir Downbeat, earned a spot in the program after a rigorous selection process that required applicants to submit videos of their performances or schedule live auditions. Those selected for the program are expected to have a five-song repertoire they can perform from memory, along with the ability to improvise on those songs as well as several jazz standards. Wu’s first performance as part of the Emerging Artists Program will be with the Dahveed Behroozi Trio at the California Jazz Conservatory on Feb. 6. at 7:30 p.m.
Founded in 2013, Jazz in the Neighborhood is a Bay Area-based organization that presents performances by local professional jazz artists and supports working musicians by arranging fair compensation for their work.
Last week, students in Rebecca Williams’ grade 7 English classes participated in an activity modeled after the popular TV show “Shark Tank.” Students created pitches to convince a panel of “Sharks” – middle school division head Evan Barth, assistant middle school division head Patricia Lai-Burrows, global education director Jennifer Walrod, English teacher Marjorie Hazeltine and middle school librarian Bernie Morrissey – to award money to charitable organizations chosen by the students.
Pitches were created by several students from each grade 7 English class, and each class voted to see who would face the panel in the final round. Williams came up with the idea for the activity both as a persuasive writing exercise and as a means of helping students “realize the privilege that we have.”
Harker parents raised the $700 in prize money, which was distributed among the finalists based on the judges’ evaluation of their pitches. Ritu Belani’s pitch took first place, earning $480 for the Women’s Global Empowerment Fund. Lera Vaisburd’s second-place pitch netted $90 for the American Cancer Society. In third place were Meishin Yen and Mira Goodwin, who donated $70 to the Best Friends Animal Society. Jason Monaghan won $40 for Doctors Without Borders, and Alice Tao and Reshma Kosaraju secured $20 for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“We really wanted the kids to have to consider their audience,” Williams noted. “I was just truly blown away by their preparedness, poise, confidence and passion.”
The Society for Science & the Public announced the 40 finalists for this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search, and three Harker seniors are among those named! They (and their projects) are:
Ayush Alag, “Computational DNA Methylation Analysis of Food Allergy Yields Novel 13-gene Signature to Diagnose Clinical Reactivity”
Natasha Maniar, “MapAF: Deep Learning to Improve Therapy of Complex Human Heart Rhythm Abnormalities”
Ruhi Sayana, “Precision Care for Leukemia: Discovery of Novel Therapeutics for High-Risk ALL via Epigenetic and Computational Transcriptome Profiling”
Each of these students will head to Washington, D.C., in early March for the national finals.
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Jan. 9, 2019:
Seven Harker seniors – the most of any school in California – were named Top 300 Scholars in this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Society for Science & the Public announced today. Ayush Alag, Cameron Jones, Natasha Maniar, Ruhi Sayana, Katherine Tian, Cindy Wang and Richard Wang were among 300 students chosen from the 2,000 entries in this year’s competition. Each will receive a $2,000 prize, and Harker will be awarded an additional $2,000, as will every school that produced a Top 300 Scholar.
This year’s 40 finalists will be announced on Jan. 23, and in March they will embark on an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the final portion of the competition, during which more than $1.8 million in prizes will be awarded. Congratulations and best of luck to these stellar students!
Next month, senior Nikhil Dharmaraj (pictured, second from the right) will visit Cambridge, Mass., to speak on a panel about the intersection of artificial intelligence and the humanities with Harvard University faculty members Jessica Fjeld and David Weinberger of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Dharmaraj’s work with Harvard began last summer during an internship at the college’s metaLAB, “a joint product of [Harvard’s] graduate school of design and the law school,” he explained, “which seeks to explore various issues at the intersection of technology and the humanities. Right up my alley, as I’m equally interested in both subjects!”
Dharmaraj worked on two projects during his time with metaLAB. The first, titled “Moral Labyrinth,” was showcased at the prestigious Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria, in September and consisted of mazes with borders made up of ethical quandaries about technology and nature. “My role in the project involved web development and early design of the digital labyrinth that ended up being exhibited at the festival,” said Dharmaraj. “I also contributed to the ideation of the physical labyrinth as well as general research for the project.”
His next project was “The Laughing Room,” an installation designed to emulate the set of a sitcom, in which participants’ conversations were scanned by an algorithm for speech patterns that would elicit laughter. A laugh track would play when the algorithm detected a phrase perceived as funny. “As a summer intern, I completed a full literature review on philosophical theories of laughter and computational humor, and I contributed to the project’s data collection and code,” Dharmaraj said. “It was done using a neural network, trained on various stand-up comedians.”
Upon matriculating at Harvard in the fall, Dharmaraj plans to continue working with metaLAB while working on his dual concentration in computer science and classics.
From Jan. 4-6, nearly 100 students from The Harker School DECA chapter traveled to the Burlingame Waterfront Marriott to compete in the 2019 Silicon Valley Career Development Conference (SVCDC). Harker performed respectably, with 69 teams as overall finalists and 30 top three winners.
“SVCDC was a really great experience for all participants, both new and returning members. A lot of people were able to stage and place [in the] top 10 in their events, which was encouraging for everyone, especially as many returning members were trying new events,” said Shania Wang, grade 12, Harker DECA CEO. “Beyond that, I think that the spirit of the chapter was something really great to see, as everyone was supporting each other and cheering for every Harker member that went on stage. In general, we are at a wonderful place as a chapter and have really great momentum as we approach the states conference.”
Members placing in top 10 are as follows:
First Place
Rishi Dange, grade 11, Accounting Applications Series
Ronit Gagneja, grade 11, Automotive Services Marketing Series
Mahi Kolla, grade 11, Entrepreneurship Individual Series
Aditi Ghalsasi, grade 11, Start-Up Business Plan
William Chien, grade 9, Principles of Finance
David Feng, grade 11, Professional Selling Event
Ghalsasi and Allison Jia, both grade 11, Travel and Tourism Marketing Team Decision Making Event
Second Place
Anay Karwal ,grade 11, Automotive Services Marketing Series
Claire Luo, grade 10, Business Finance Series
Arun Sundaresan, grade 11, Business Services Marketing Series
Dange, Financial Consulting Event
Phil Han, grade 11, Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling
Simren Kochhar, grade 9, Principles of Business Management and Administration
Victoria Han, grade 9, Principles of Marketing
Evan Cheng, grade 11, Restaurant and Food Service Management Series
Enya Lu and Shania Wang, both grade 12, Sports and Entertainment Marketing Team Decision Making Event
Third Place
Calais Poirson and Elaine Zhai, both grade 10, Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making Event
Andrea Thia grade 9, Business Growth Plan
Sayon Biswas and Suraj Pakala, both grade 12, Entrepreneurship Team Decision Making
Bryan Zhang, grade 10, Finance Operations Research Event
Fonda Hu and Anvitha Tummala, both grade 10, Hospitality and Tourism Operations Research Event
On Friday, Harker DECA members and chaperones traveled to the Burlingame Waterfront Marriott for the first competitive conference of the 2018-2019 competitive season. While participants were waiting for hotel rooms, the Harker DECA officer team had Jamba Juice brought in for members to enjoy. Testing session began promptly after and took up the remainder of the day until the opening ceremony, at which the California DECA officer team welcomed all of the competitors with the SV Factor, the annual talent show, and officially kicked off the beginning of the conference.
Competitive events began early on Saturday morning, and teams made use of the leisure time before and between their competitive events to practice and receive some last-minute feedback from their officers and mentors.
“As a first year member attending my first conference, it was stressful at times to talk in front of a judge and answer the questions that they had impromptu,” said Rosh Roy, grade 10. “However, it was a wonderful learning experience and an opportunity to build and strengthen friendships, and I’m excited to bring this new knowledge into SCDC.”
After finishing their competitive events, members were given the rest of the day to explore Burlingame, relax and grab some dinner. Silicon Valley DECA also hosted the DECA Dance, a great opportunity to create networks with other members from different schools.
Early Sunday morning, all attendees and chaperones gathered for the award ceremony, where Harker proudly sent 69 teams to top 10 at the mini awards.
“Because it’s my first competitive DECA Conference, I didn’t think I would place, but then they called my name up,” said William Chien, grade 9, who was awarded first place in Principles of Finance. “It’s inspiring because I didn’t have as much experience as compared to some of my other competitors, but it really goes to show that if you do your best, you can achieve anything.”
After the mini awards, breakfast was served and not long after, the grand awards session began in the Grand Ballroom, where Harker members were continuously recognized. Overall, 30 teams placed as top 3 in their events, a monumental honor for the Harker DECA chapter.
After the grand awards, Enya Lu, grade 12, vice president of Silicon Valley DECA, announced the approaching end of her service on the Silicon Valley officer team, spoke about the accomplishments of her term and encouraged other members to campaign.
“It was a very bittersweet moment and it felt like time had passed so fast since when I went up on stage to speak at my last SVCDC,” said Lu. “However, I have about two months left in my term until states, and I’m looking forward to what I can do for SV during these months. Once again, I am incredibly thankful to my chapter that has supported me through their cheers, spirit and work.”
Overall, the 2018-19 SVCDC was an enormous success and a rewarding experience for all Harker DECA competitors and officers. All members were able to experience a competitive conference, gain useful preparation skills for the upcoming states competition, and leave feeling inspired and motivated to continue with their DECA journey.
“As a chapter advisor, I think this year’s SVCDC was a stellar kickoff to the competitive season,” said Juston Glass, Harker DECA chapter advisor. “It gave students confidence as they continue on to the states conference, and I’m proud of the effort, poise and determination that each student demonstrated to prepare for the competitions. Go Harker DECA!”
Every Friday and several Saturdays leading up to SVCDC, Harker DECA held weekly study sessions in the Innovation Center, where students could practice their role-plays in front of an officer, receive live feedback for their written events and take mock exams. To prepare for the California State Career Development Conference, DECA strongly advises all members to attend the weekly study sessions. Go Eagles!
About The Harker School DECA Harker DECA is an international competitive business organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality and management. Our DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business and promotes competition so that the next generation will be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders.
To learn more about this story, please contact Elaine Zhai, director of communications for Harker DECA, 21ElaineZ@students.harker.org.
The upper school show choir, Downbeat, was recently accepted into the 2019 Varsity Vocals International Championship of High School A Cappella, a global competition highlighting high school a cappella groups. They will travel to Portland, Ore., in January to compete in the quarterfinal round. Varsity Vocals organizes a cappella competitions for high school and college students that attract thousands of singers from across the world every year. The collegiate-level competition is featured in the “Pitch Perfect” series of films, which has become one of the highest-grossing musical comedy franchise of all time.
“We are thrilled to receive this wonderful opportunity!” said Downbeat co-director Jennifer Sandusky. “It will provide a new performance venue for our singers’ musical growth with adjudicated feedback on our singing and performing skills.”
July 9, 2019
Update: Over the last year, Alag has received numerous kudos for his research, including having his work published in both Smithsonian Magazine and PLOS, a professional research journal:
Nov. 29, 2018
Over the summer, senior Ayush Alag received a $10,000 grant from genetic research company Illumina to continue his research into food allergies, which led to the creation of his own company, Allergezy. The company aims to develop a safe and accurate means of genetic testing for allergies. Alag’s original research, which he pursued due to his own experiences with food allergies, was the basis for the project he submitted for the 2018 Synopsys Science & Technology Championship, which won a first award in the bioinformatics category. Recently, Alag was selected to give a poster presentation at the American Medical Informatics Association’s 2019 Informatics Summit in March, an opportunity typically reserved for medical professionals and graduate students. More information about Allergezy, its team and its mission can be found on the company’s website, which is maintained by Alag’s brother, Shray, Allergezy’s VP of marketing and web design.