This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly. Access the full issue, including class notes, at Harker’s issuu.com page: http://issuu.com/theharkerschool/docs/harker_quarterly_winter_2015.
A brief hiatus in San Jose afforded Stephanie Guo ’09 precious time to pause for reflection, after spending nearly a year working as a human rights advocate in the Philippines, helping to combat child sex trafficking and global slavery.
In mid-September, the alumna and class agent returned to the U.S. from Manila, where she had been volunteering with International Justice Mission (IJM), the largest international human rights organization of its kind. She was preparing to head abroad again, to start a new life as a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Still battling jet lag, she made room in her hectic schedule for a visit to Harker’s upper school. On a beautiful fall day, over a long lunch at the Edge’s French patio, she chatted with Harker Quarterly, reflecting back on her work in IJM’s Manila field office.
“I had the privilege of working in the National Communications, Mobilization and Advocacy Department as the government relations and advocacy intern,” said Guo, explaining that IJM is based in Washington, D.C., with field offices all over the world.
“IJM is dedicated to proving that justice for the poor is possible. In my office, our casework was focused on child sex trafficking, a global slavery epidemic fueled by poverty and exploitation. Manila is one of three offices in the Philippines dedicated to this work, and is also one of IJM’s oldest offices, and has accomplished so much in the past 14 years,” she reported.
Guo’s position normally requires a one-year commitment, although she had to leave the internship a couple months short due to her prior graduate school commitment. During her time with IJM, she had a variety of responsibilities. Many of her projects included advocacy work and facilitating government partnerships to improve post-rescue victim recovery and legal processes.
The overall mission of IJM, said Guo, is to combat everyday violence, an injustice that ensures that the poor stay
poor. This violence looks different in various contexts, she explained. “For the poor widow in Africa, this could manifest in land grabbing. For the impoverished father in India, this could look like bonded labor,” she said.
In response to the massive problem of global poverty, and motivated by the biblical call to love the poor, IJM has staffed its eld offices with interdisciplinary teams of lawyers, social workers, law enforcement professionals and community mobilizers, all experts in their respective fields and passionate about the cause. The ultimate goal is to leave the communities they serve with a trans- formed justice system, better equipped to do their own advocacy work.
Guo said that she had friends who had worked with IJM in the past and knew it was something she wanted to pursue in between finishing college and going on to graduate school. She was one of the youngest interns in her office.
One of her most memorable experiences was accompanying rescued girls saved from traffickers to shelters, assisting as they were set up with private social workers. “Having other girls present who had previously been rescued and successfully completed our program there to help out was really a game changer in getting these young girls to open up,” she recalled.
After graduate school, Guo hopes that her career will include working toward securing basic human rights. She credits Harker’s emphasis on global education and outreach for opening the door to her present interest in advocacy work.
“Harker was one of the first venues through which I began to realize my passion for seeking global justice and I would be thrilled if more students would consider pursuing careers in this field,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
During his recent appearance as a guest speaker at Harker’s upper school, Al-Jazeera America’s “The Stream” co-host Wajahat Ali MS ’94 reflected on his time at Harker and engaged the packed audience with stories about his work and life as a Muslim-American.
Born to Pakistani immigrant parents, Ali attended Harker from 1986 to 1994. He joked to an enthusiastic, receptive crowd about having lentil stains on his shirt, only speaking Urdu until the age of 5, and being “born and raised in ‘Fremont-istan,’ California.”
The alumnus also spoke fondly about a favorite lower school teacher, Sue Peterson, whom he credits with helping to push him toward becoming the professional playwright, journalist and public speaker he is today.
“She had asked us to write a one-page story. I ended up writing 10 pages. She told me it was a great story and had me recite it in front of the entire class, and then again at a talent show for older students,” recalled Ali, during the assembly held on the morning of Sept. 19 in the upper school gym. “That was the first time I realized I had power in my voice, because I shared my story.”
Ali visited Harker at the request of senior Shay Lari-Hosain, editor-in-chief of Wingspan, the upper school’s long-form magazine. Lari-Hosain, who introduced Ali at the assembly, had previously interviewed him for a Wingspan story about issues that Muslim-Americans face. That article got picked up by a leading English-language newspaper in Pakistan. Following the introduction, Ali took the podium, discussing not only his days at Harker, but his time as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, and how that led to publishing his play “The Domestic Crusaders” in New York. The play, which centers around a Muslim-American family coming together and dealing with their problems, was the first thing Ali had published. It broke box office records at Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York and received the 2011 Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre.
After a stint as a freelance correspondent at news organizations including CNN and the Wall Street Journal, Ali went on to become a co-host at Al-Jazeera, despite various struggles, even briefly being homeless and living in a shelter at the age of 30.
Before that, as a young college student, he experienced his first real taste of bigotry after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Then a senior at UC Berkeley and the head of the university’s Muslim Student Association, he recalled how, in the post-9/11 climate, he was forced to become a “professional Muslim,” constantly defending his role of student leader and activist.
“As a ‘professional Muslim,’ you have to be a walking Wikipedia article … an instant expert on Islam, Qur’an, Shari’a, Hamas, hummus, Fatah, fatwas, Iran [and] Salman Khan,” he said, jokingly, but nonetheless making a serious point.
Throughout his address, he stressed the importance of being true to yourself, and not being pressured by the standard Silicon Valley “checklist” of success (what he called the “Holy Trinity”) to become a lawyer, doctor or engineer.
“Blow up the checklist. … Be the most authentic version of yourself,” he advised the students in attendance. “If you fall, hope you have the courage to raise your hand out and have faith that someone will pick you up, and once you guys make it, which you will, my request for you is to reach out across the aisle and help that dude who might be seen as a problem.”
Ali received a standing ovation after concluding his talk by stressing the far-reaching importance of storytelling among minorities, especially youth. His own future plans include continuing to tell his stories with a possible book project in the works.
“I loved how Wajahat Ali was able to connect with the students. His stories were funny, relatable, and carried a deeper message. I have never in my seven years at Harker seen so many students walk out of an assembly smiling and inspired. I was surprised that he spoke more about his life story than discrimination per se, but I think that it carried his message effectively,” observed Michael Zhao, grade 12.
Lari-Hosain said he was thrilled that Ali’s visit was such a success and still generating continued conversation among upper school students and faculty alike. (To read a story about Lari-Hosain’s outreach work in Pakistan: https://staging.news.harker.org/grade-12-student-spends-summers-performing-outreach-work-in-pakistan/.)
“He was an inspiring figure,” said Elisabeth Siegel, grade 12, “navigating through hurdles and setbacks left and right. He gave the audience a much-needed perspective, especially in the current political climate of the world, of what life was like growing up Muslim in America, a religious minority group that went from being the object of ignorance of a majority of Americans pre-2001 to the religious minority considered by a good portion of Americans to be a demographic threat.”
After the assembly Ali participated in an informal question and answer session with about 40 students in the journalism room. He then took part in a diversity discussion in math teacher Lola Muldrew’s classroom.
“Allow yourself the space to fail. Make up your own checklist,” Ali reiterated during those subsequent discussions.
Maverick McNealy ’13 was noted in the San Jose Mercury News on July 16 for holding down third place at the inaugural Barbasol Championship PGA golf tournament in Opelika, Ala. See story at http://bayareane.ws/1Okicw1. McNealy, who won the Haskins Award as the top college linksman, is also the 2015 Division I recipient of the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award, presented by Barbasol on June 5.
An article posted at www.Nicklaus.com notes McNealy’s accomplishments this year:
“A sophomore from Portola Valley, Calif., McNealy led NCAA Division I with six collegiate victories this year. He posted a dominant 10-stroke win at the Pac-12 Conference Championships, where his 18-under aggregate score of 262 established a new league tournament scoring record. The Pac-12 Conference Player owns a 69.05 season scoring average, the second best in recorded NCAA history. McNealy claimed medalist honors at the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional, Southwestern Intercollegiate, Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational, The Prestige at PGA West and The Goodwin. McNealy was selected to compete this summer on the United States Palmer Cup team.”
Andy Fang ’10, co-founder of the Palo Alto based on-demand food delivery startup DoorDash, was included on Forbes magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list of young movers and shakers in the consumer tech category.
DoorDash (www.doordash.com) hires its own drivers to offer home delivery from restaurants unable to provide such service. In just two years, 22-year-old Fang, a Stanford graduate with a degree in computer science, and business partner Stanley Tang, have raised an impressive $19.7 million in startup funding. DoorDash now serves five major metropolitan areas.
A leading source for reliable business news and financial information, Forbes is well known for its annual lists and rankings. The 30 Under 30 list (http://www.forbes.com/30under30/#/) prides itself on predicting the brightest and most ambitious young adults to watch in the coming year.
The 2015 categories include venture capital, enterprise technology, consumer technology, sports, social entrepreneurs, science, retail, music, media, marketing, manufacturing, law, entertainment, health care, games, food, finance, energy, education and art. More than 600 millennials were featured on the lists, with Silicon Valley at the forefront of startup culture.
Fang, a former Harker Quarterly cover boy (having been featured in a graduation photo in the summer 2010 edition), said he is honored to have been selected. “I’m grateful for my friends and family for helping me get to this point and glad to have the support of the Harker community!”
If any readers know of other Harker alumni to have made the Forbes lists that we may have overlooked, please bring them to our attention by writing News@harker.org.
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
These days, it seems, there is an app for just about everything, and young app developers have become one of the fastest-growing groups of technological inventors. Often working from home with little or no overhead, using free or low-cost app development tools, creative app makers are attracting the attention of technology companies and users worldwide.
With cell phones practically an extension of our bodies, useful mobile apps have the power to directly affect and improve the quality of everyday life. Indeed, app invention is fast becoming part and parcel of the digital revolution and widely being incorporated into computer science education curricula as the demand for fun, easy to use, new apps grows.
This is music to the ears of several Harker alumni, who have launched, or are about to launch, innovative new apps. Meet app designers Neeraj Baid ’13, Govi Dasu ’12, Daanish Jamal ’12 and his business partner, Adhir Ravipati ’05.
Giftbook: A Mobile Wallet that Stores Gift Cards
Before designing his latest app, called giftbook, developer Neeraj Baid ’13 had a vision: that no one should have to carry or lose plastic gift cards again. That desire led to the creation of giftbook (https://gftbk.herokuapp.com/), Baid’s fourth app for iOS (a mobile operating system developed by Apple for use with their iDevices), which stores gift cards in a centralized location.
“Giftbook is an app that makes spending and keeping track of your gift cards easy,” Baid said. “You can save cards from any retailer on your iPhone so you never worry about forgetting one at home,” he added.
The app, which is now available at Apple’s app store as a mobile gift card wallet, already has received overwhelmingly positive customer reviews. However, Baid is planning a design overhaul and a major update in mid- October that will enable users to purchase and send gifts through giftbook.
“I build features as they come up. For a major update like the one coming up, I’m often working the equivalent of a full-time job to ensure it’s ready by October. There’s also a fair amount of non-technical work involved, such as working with partners to allow me to sell gift cards in giftbook,” Baid explained.
In addition to his work as founder of giftbook, Baid also attends the University of California, Berkeley, where he is getting a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. Additionally, he worked as an iOS intern at Venmo, a company that provides a free, friend-to-friend, mobile payment platform app.
Among giftbook’s features is one that lets users know when they are near a retailer with a relevant gift card (with directions to closest locations); the card simply appears on the phone’s lock screen with easy accessibility. The app also uses a standardized approach to displaying barcodes, so gift cards are accepted by all retailers. To ensure security, sensitive gift card data (such as serial numbers and pins) are never stored on a server.
The apps Baid created prior to giftbook are Take Me Away, SpeakToSnap and a URL shortener for Google. Take Me Away allows users to travel the world from their iPhones by tapping a location button for any global destination, where they can view photos taken by real people, among other features. SpeakToSnap is a voice-activated camera, while the URL shortener allows users to quickly and simply shorten long and unwieldy URLs, using Google’s goo.gl shortening service.
Baid’s first app, SpeakToSnap, came about after taking the Global Online Academy iOS class offered at Harker during the spring of his senior year. “Harker really helped lay a critical computer science foundation,” he recalled.
“Every app I have built comes out of necessity for something I want in my own life,” he said. “For example, I built giftbook after graduating from high school. I needed a way to manage the huge number of gifts I received from graduation parties and already had from before. I’ve found that working on something you personally want is the best way to remain dedicated and complete it at the highest quality possible.”
The best way to learn iOS development, he advised, is simply by doing it. “Your first app won’t be your best – and it shouldn’t be. You’ll learn a lot from building something silly like a URL shortener, and that knowledge will be invaluable as you build your next apps. There are incredible iOS resource tutorials available online and pre-made app components,” he noted.
Learning Dollars: A Pilot Project Designed to Help English Learners in Developing Countries Land Jobs
Govi Dasu ’12 recently returned from a trip to India, where he spent his summer doing background research for an app he is designing, now in the pilot stage, called Learning Dollars. The socially conscious app aims to help individuals in developing countries improve their economic situation by landing higher paying jobs.
Dasu said he plans to accomplish this by first helping users to learn English and then connecting them with helpful resources to find better employment. The higher paying jobs in developing countries include vocations such as hotel workers, airport employees, cashiers, clerks and call center staff – all of which require English language mastery.
While in India, Dasu worked exhaustively on an experiment to see whether Rosetta Stone (a $400 software program) could teach English to someone unable to speak the language.
In doing so, he noted the ways the software could be made more comprehensive and effective for users in the developing world. One of his test users was a middle-aged cook named Geeta, who dropped out of school after second grade and does not know how to read any language (but can speak two). Extensively working with her helped Dasu gain an understanding of what kind of education technology works in developing countries, especially with people who are illiterate and (like Geeta) may not have used a computer before.
Before conducting his work abroad, Dasu believed that, if successful, “a free smartphone app that uses Rosetta Stone’s method might be able to help people in the developing world to learn English in order to gain access to higher paying jobs and higher education.”
While he walked away from India with mixed feelings about the viability of the Rosetta Stone program, it did not deter him from moving forward with work on his own app. Indeed, the testing process allowed him to note ways in which the software could be improved for users in the developing world. He said he came up with the name, Learning Dollars, because it has “learning” in it (i.e., learning English) but at the same time, it sounds like “earning” (as in earning dollars). He said he hopes to get a minimum viable product (MVP) out in the coming month. The program uses a Google app engine setup and coincides with his goal to dedicate his life to fighting poverty, promoting democracy and protecting freedom.
“Often the dollar – which besides being the U.S. currency, is the international reserve currency – is associated with a strong purchasing power in many developing countries,” said Dasu, who recently graduated (after just two years) from Stanford University.
During his years at Harker, he participated in many extracurricular activities, including serving as the school’s ASB vice president.
NextSpot: A Mobile App for Fluid Group Events
When Daanish Jamal ’12 and Adhir Ravipati ’05 partnered to create NextSpot, a mobile app that helps coordinate everyday meet-ups, they wanted to create something that they and their peers would find useful in their own lives.
Now available in Apple’s app store, NextSpot streamlines the details of such things as grabbing lunch between classes, catching a movie at the end of the week, enjoying a day at the beach, playing a game of basketball or planning a night on the town. It is integrated with Yelp and saves past favorite meeting spots, among other features.
“Say you’re a college student, trying to get 20-25 friends over for a party. What we’ve learned is that you’re not going to create a Facebook event (or Evite or Eventbrite) because that sets too formal a tone. On the other hand, messaging/group messaging is casual but too unorganized. NextSpot fits this use case – casual, organized events,” Jamal explained.
“We released a beta this past spring to select fraternities and sororities at Georgetown, USC, Stanford, Oregon and UC Santa Barbara. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, and we are gearing up for our launch in a few weeks as well as raising our next round of funding,” added Ravipati.
Generally, it takes at least a few months to develop an MVP with the core functions of an app, Jamal and Ravipati agreed. After releasing an MVP, it becomes a quicker process developing the product based on user feedback.
Presently the talented duo are devoting themselves full-time to working on NextSpot. Jamal has taken a leave of absence from Georgetown University and Ravipati left his previous startup earlier this year to focus on launching the app.
They believe that their time at Harker helped pave the way for their current perseverance. “Harker has a great track record of occupational and entrepreneurial success amongst its graduates. I don’t know if it can be narrowed down to one or two things, but rather developing a problem- solving mindset that challenges you to look at problems differently,” said Ravipati.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Life for John Owens ’85 has changed significantly ever since President Barack Obama nominated him to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the nation’s largest appeals court, which shapes federal law from districts in California and eight other Western states.
Owens’ historic appointment as a judge was confirmed on March 31 with a vote from the U.S. Senate. On April 25 he was officially sworn in as a circuit judge during an investiture ceremony held in the jury assembly room of the Courthouse Annex in San Diego.
“Professionally, for more than 15 years, my primary concern was obtaining the best outcome for a client, either the United States or a private person or company. I really cared about the outcome of a case. Now as a judge, I no longer care who wins or loses. I only care that my decision was correct under the pertinent facts and law,” said Owens, a former partner with the Los Angeles-based law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. “On a personal level, my life is a little less hectic now, which is nice for my wife and daughters,” he added.
Judges on the 9th Circuit review the decisions of federal trial courts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and certain islands in the Pacific. “This requires us to apply a wide variety of law (civil, criminal, immigration, administrative). After we have reviewed the decision of the trial court and heard arguments from the parties, we set out to write an opinion explaining our decision to uphold or reverse the trial court’s decision. We work with law clerks (usually recent law school graduates) to help make these decisions,” explained Owens, who graduated first in his class from Stanford Law School in 1996.
He then served as a law clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that Owens was a federal prosecutor and served as chief of the criminal division in the San Diego U.S. attorney’s office. At the age of 19, he worked in the publicity department of the Golden State Warriors basketball team.
Owens’ current judicial appointment filled one of the most prolonged vacancies in 9th Circuit history. Judge Stephen Trott stepped down in 2004, leaving unresolved political feuding over whether his seat should be considered a California judgeship or an Idaho judgeship.
Reflecting back on his experience clerking for Ginsburg, Owens said she had an extremely high level of dedication to our justice system.
While working with her, Owens helped set up a visit to the Supreme Court for a group of grade 8 Harker students who were in Washington, D.C., on their class trip in 1998. “Justice Ginsburg addressed the students in the courtroom, and answered their questions. I was very proud of my fellow Harker Eagles that day,” he recalled.
Of his time at Harker, he said that the school remains “the most significant professional and personal influence on me.” He went on to say that Harker provided him with the study skills necessary to succeed in school, and more important, the ethics and values to succeed in life.
Owens started out as a Harker student in 1979, graduated from grade 8 in 1985, and worked as a summer camp counselor/coach at the school from 1985 until 1991. Today, he remains active with the school in his capacity as a member of Harker’s distinguished board of fellows.
“It was the least I could do to say thanks to the school,” he said.
An advisory group to the school’s board of trustees, the board of fellows comprises a dedicated contingent of current parents, alumni parents and alumni who meet regularly to exchange ideas on strategic planning for the school. During a spring board of fellows meeting, Owens was applauded for his recent judicial appointment.
When asked to offer words of wisdom to fellow Harker alumni about pursuing their chosen careers, Owens said he would offer two pieces of advice. “First, make sure that you enjoy your work … you will probably spend more time working than anything else in your life, so you don’t want to be stuck in a miserable job. Second, there is no substitute for hard work, especially when you are in high school and college. Hard work now makes the rest of your life much easier,” he said.
When Amira Valliani ’06 recently had her photo taken with President Obama, she never expected it to become a Harker Quarterly cover shot. Now the photo has made Harker Quarterly history – marking the first time a graduate has graced the magazine’s cover.
Published four times a year, Harker Quarterly showcases some of the top news, leading programs, inspiring people and visionary plans of the greater Harker community. We mail it to current families and alumni, and post to our account at issuu.com for all to enjoy.
Valliani recently wrapped up her duties as senior adviser to the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications at the White House. During her stint there, Valliani worked on a range of foreign policy, press and public diplomacy issues. Of her photo with President Obama, she said “It was taken in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before a town hall with young people from across Southeast Asia as a part of the launch of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), which I coordinated. My boss introduced me to the president backstage before the event started and told him I put the initiative together.”
That event was actually Valliani’s last day on the job. “So the president and I chatted for a few minutes about the initiative and my plans for after the White House,” added Valliani who previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton. In that position, she served as special assistant to the State Department’s deputy chief of staff and wrote speeches for Secretary Clinton.
When not working (or posing with the world’s most powerful politician), Valliani enjoys running. This past spring, she ran in the Boston Marathon in an effort to raise money for the Aga Khan Foundation, one of the world’s largest international development organizations. “Our team of three runners successfully raised over $60,000,” she reported.
Valliani recently packed up her apartment in Washington, D.C., and backpacked around Myanmar (Burma) with fellow alumna Mina Lee ’06. She is spending the remainder of the summer traveling throughout Southeast Asia and Europe. Come fall, she will attend graduate school at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
When his final putt dropped, “I wasn’t sure where I stood with regard to the cut line,” said McNealy, but when I got to the scoring table and saw that I was two shots inside the projected cut with nobody who could realistically pass me, it hit me that I was going to be playing in the US Open.”
In an interview with the Northern California Golf Association, McNealy said about qualifying, “It’s awesome. It’s a great day. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my whole life. It’s still sinking in.”
Maverick will have his secret weapon along for the U.S. Open, too. “I am excited to have my dad caddying for me that week, and my three brothers (Scout, grade 7; Colt, grade 9; Dakota, grade 10) and mom will also be there cheering me on from the grandstands!”
At Stanford, McNealy was named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team and received an All-Pac-12 honorable mention. In his career at Harker, he twice earned the WBAL individual championship and was named to the WBAL All-League first team three times. McNealy is the Harker record holder for lowest nine-hole match score (-6) and most matches as medalist (nine of 10).
He noted, “at Harker I figured out that I wanted to pursue both golf and my academics seriously; hence, it was a pretty easy decision to choose Stanford. I plan on majoring in management science and engineering with a minor in computer science.”
In a 2013 Harker Quarterly article on Harker athletes playing in college, McNealy noted he was learning the game when he was learning how to walk and “loved to go outside and whack balls around with a plastic club.” Arriving at Harker in grade 9, McNealy immediately excelled on the links, but he believes that “until I shoot 18 in every round, there will always be room to get better.”
Given that drive, it is no wonder that McNealy is acutely aware of the life lessons golf provides: “Golf, to me, is the ultimate game of personal responsibility,” he said. “Your performance is a direct result of the time and effort you put into the game, and you take complete responsibility for your play. If you hit a bad shot, you can only blame yourself because you were the only one to swing the club. Conversely, if you make a hole in one, you can take complete pride in your accomplishment.”
Daniel Kim ‘09 has been awarded a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans up to $90,000 towards study in medicine at Yale. He is one of 30 winners in a national competition that attracted more than 1,200 applicants.
These awards are of special note because they honor and support young New Americans: immigrants and children of immigrants.
Each year the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship Program recognizes, honors and supports 30 New Americans who seem best positioned to use their graduate training in this country to prepare them to make distinctive contributions to American life.
The son of Korean immigrants, Kim moved to California with his parents when he was 7. His grandfather was a farmer, and his father was the first in his family to get a college education. Growing up in Silicon Valley, Kim admired his father’s meticulous approach to his work as a semiconductor engineer.
Kim entered his undergraduate career at Harvard determined to make a difference in health care. He served as co-president of both Harvard College Red Cross and Team HBV, a group that educates the Asian and Pacific Islander community in Boston about the hepatitis B virus.
As his passion was taking shape, though, Kim took a leave of absence from school to take care of his father who was battling cancer.
Realizing that research was a crucial tool in improving patients’ lives, Kim met his father’s doctor and arranged to work in her laboratory. Though he hadn’t previously done biomedical research, he was soon overseeing a study repurposing the antifungal agent itraconazole as a targeted therapy for skin cancer.
After his father’s health returned, Kim went back to Harvard with renewed ambition. Kim is applying to joint M.D./Ph.D. programs and looking forward to a career as a physician-scientist involved in the fight against cancer. Heartiest congratulations on the award!
This story originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Harker alumna and broadcast journalist Tiffany Liou ’08 doesn’t know the meaning of a “typical day at the office.” And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Life on the job as a news reporter/ producer is always an adventure for Liou, who just two years ago graduated from Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business and soon after landed a job as the overnight assignment editor at the Oakland-based KTVU (channel 2).
It was at the Fox affiliate (serving San Francisco and the greater Bay Area) that Liou honed her journalistic talents by finding story ideas, researching, interviewing and fact-checking. She quickly put those skills to use by going behind the scenes, providing back-up research, which aided in such breaking stories as the deadly San Mateo limousine fire and the controversial Zimmerman trial and protests.
“I used to listen to scanners overnight and make beat calls to every police station in the Bay Area. I would find breaking news that would air first thing on the morning show. I gathered all the facts of a story and gave information to our writers, producers and reporters. Being part of the assignment desk sharpened my news judgment. It taught me how to be a thorough investigator and reporter. And, working with the pros at KTVU taught me how to be a better writer and speaker,” recalled Liou.
After a year and a half at KTVU, Liou was recruited to work as a reporter/producer at KTVE/KARD, an NBC affiliate in Louisiana. She wrote and stacked stories (ordering them based on themes and segues) for the three-hour morning show, as well as covered stories in the field for the station, whose signal can be seen in 18 counties throughout Arkansas and Louisiana.
While a great career move, Liou concedes that relocating to Louisiana wasn’t easy. “I spent 23 years in the Bay Area. I’m born and bred Californian, and it’s true … you can’t take the California out of me. But I look at it as a temporary adventure. It’s a lot slower paced, the food is fried and delicious, and Southern hospitality is very comforting,” she said.
Still, her ultimate goal is to return to the Bay Area as a reporter. (Just at HQ press time, Liou started a new job in Iowa. See related story for details of her eventful first day!)
Liou first got bitten by the reporting bug after graduating from Harker, while simultaneously attending Santa Clara University (studying business and communication) and Ohlone College in Fremont, where she was part of the school’s television broadcasting program.
At Ohlone, Liou gained practical, hands-on experience working for The Ohlone Network News, which is broadcast live on a local Comcast channel and is run entirely by students.
While in college she also did a marketing internship at KGO-TV, an ABC-owned and operated television station in San Francisco. There, much of her time was spent doing Nielsen analysis about the news broadcasts. “That’s when I realized I wanted to be the one delivering the news and not analyzing it,” she said.
Reflecting back to her time at Harker, Liou said she wasn’t directly involved in journalism, but was part of other extracurricular activities like the Spirit Club, student council and Junior State of America (JSA), all of which likely paved the way for her future career in broadcast journalism.
“During the weekly school meetings, I was always that girl from Spirit Club standing at the front giving announcements. I would emcee events like homecoming,” she explained.
“Being part of so many different clubs and sports was amazing, and I honestly don’t think I could have had that experience at any other school. I was able to study, play basketball and golf, and be part of all these different clubs. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Harker,” she affirmed.
Liou fondly recalled how, before getting that first breakthrough TV reporting job, she would shadow reporters at KTVU and shoot stand-ups, essentially working as if her stories would really air.
“Sometimes I would just bring my DSLR [digital single-lens reflex camera] and go out to an event and cover it. All of these mock stories actually built up my news reel, which is what got me my first job!” said Liou, adding that reporting is her passion and she will “go anywhere at any time to cover a story.”
Liou Survives Emergency Plane Landing En Route to New Reporting Job
Just as this issue was going to press, we learned that Liou, on her way to a new job as a reporter at KWQC-TV in Davenport, Iowa, was on board American Eagle flight 3400, which was forced to make an emergency landing after pilots reported smoke in the cockpit.
The plane, with 45 passengers and a crew of three, landed safely in Greenville, Texas, just 15 minutes into the flight. A failed electrical component is suspected of causing the smoke.
“The bond I share with the other passengers and three American Airline crew members is different than I have ever felt before,” said Liou, recalling that “reporter mode” kicked in after she and her fellow passengers had landed safely.
At that time she sent a single tweet about the incident which went viral, prompting the Today show, CNN and NBC Dallas to contact her for an eyewitness account. “And that’s when I went from being a scared and helpless passenger to being a reporter,” she said.