Three women from Harker were honored by the Davidson Institute in its annual awards. Natasha Maniar ’19 and Cynthia Chen, grade 12, were named 2019 Davidson Fellow Laureates, while Ruhi Sayana ’19 received an honorable mention. Maniar’s award is in the technology category, while Chen’s and Sayana’s awards are in the science category. The two fellows each will receive a $50,000 scholarship and a trip to Washington, D.C., to receive their awards.
Chen’s project is titled “Decoding Neural Networks: Novel Computational Methods to Discover Anti-Tumor B Cell Receptor Binding Motifs.” Her Davidson summary reads: “Cynthia’s study is the first to provide a framework for interpreting the motif patterns learned by deep learning models trained on protein sequence data. Deep neural networks have achieved great success in diagnosing diseases, but they remain black boxes: scientists are often unable to clearly explain how a model arrives at its decision or which features matter most. To address this, Cynthia developed computational methods to uncover the patterns learned by a deep neural network that predicts cancer types based on B cell receptor (BCR) sequences. By decoding this model, she identified and validated 65 tumor-specific BCR binding motifs for 13 cancer types, a discovery that could guide future synthesis of antibody drugs for targeted cancer treatments.” Read more about Chen’s efforts here.
Maniar’s project is titled “MapAF: Deep Learning to Improve Therapy of Complex Human Heart Rhythm Abnormalities” and, according to the Davidson site, she has “developed a computational approach to identify sources of atrial fibrillation (AF). Despite affecting more than 33 million people worldwide, diagnostic imaging of electrical conduction through the heart remains relatively subjective and continues to rely heavily on visual interpretation by experts. Natasha addressed this as a two-fold problem. She first developed an algorithm to analyze the heart’s chaotic electrical signals and then interpreted those results using her computational tool. Her code identified the AF sources inside the heart with greater accuracy than trained experts. This tool improves AF treatment by streamlining and standardizing the catheter ablation procedure, making it globally accessible.” Read more about Maniar here.
Sayana’s project, titled “Precision Care for Leukemia: Discovery of Novel Therapeutics for High-Risk ALL via Epigenetic and Computational Transcriptome Profiling,” already earned her one of the 40 finalist slots in the Regeneron Science Talent Search in early 2019. Maniar also was a finalist. In addition, Sayana was a grand prize winner in the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship, held in March. Chen was also a grand prize winner. Last but not least, Sayana earned a $10,000 scholarship as an Intel Foundation Young Scientist from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Read more about Sayana here and search the names of all three at news.harker.org to see the many science prizes these exceptional women have earned in their budding careers!
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.
—
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!
Last month, Alice Feng, grade 9, and Sriram Bhimaraju, grade 7, were announced as winners in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition. Feng won a STEM Award in the engineering category for her project, “The Effect of Mushroom Species and Substrates on the Properties of a Novel Biodegradable Material: Mycelium,” which earned her an iPad and $3,500 to attend a STEM summer camp of her choice. Bhimaraju’s project, “Low-Cost Archery Assistant with an Interface for the Visually Impaired,” won the Rising Star Award, which netted him a trip to Phoenix to attend the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May of next year as a Broadcom MASTERS International Official Observer. In recognition of their hard work and achievements, each student also received a certificate of recognition from U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.
Earlier this week, the New York Academy of Sciences accepted senior Ayush Vyas into the NYAS Junior Academy. As part of NYAS’ Global STEM Alliance (GSA), the Junior Academy program connects students aged 13-18 with a range of educational and networking opportunities in STEM disciplines such as public health, sustainability, emerging technology and many more.
Members of the academy participate twice a year in innovation challenges that address a wide range of global issues. Students attend a boot camp to bolster the skills necessary to address these challenges. More than 6,500 applications were submitted to the program this year, and Vyas is one of 586 students accepted. As one of the accepted participants, Vyas is eligible to attend the Global STEM Alliance Summit in New York City, set for summer 2019.
Sriram Bhimaraju, who will enter grade 7 in the fall, was today named a finalist in the Discovery Education 3M 2018 Young Scientist Challenge! Every year, students in grades 5-8 submit videos for the competition, in which they detail a scientific solution they have devised to an existing problem. Bhimaraju developed a smartphone app that helps archers improve their aim with the aid of a Bluetooth sensor. In his video, Bhimaraju explains how he used Hooke’s Law and several formulas to calculate how various factors affect an arrow’s trajectory when shot from a bow, and how he utilized the smartphone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to help archers reach the optimal form. The final stage of the competition is set to take place Oct. 15-16 at 3M’s headquarters in Maplewood, Minn.
Amy Jin ’18 drew a fine accolade from the City of San Jose via Councilmember Chappie Jones, who, along with Mayor Sam Liccardo, presented her with a commendation yesterday.
The midday meeting, held in council chambers, celebrated Jin for being named one of five students nationwide to receive the Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing from the Computer Science Teachers Association in March.
Jones, who represents the city council district in which Harker resides, noted, “Amy Jin just graduated from high school and she is already proving to be such an accomplished young person. I was honored to present Amy with a commendation at City Council for being 1 of 5 students in the nation to win the Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing.”
In describing her work, Jin said, “Every year, 7 million patients suffer surgical complications, many of which are caused by poor operative skill due to lack of individualized training and feedback. Improving these surgical outcomes means evaluating surgeon performance, a time-consuming process requiring expert supervision. Thus, I developed a deep-learning approach to automatically assess operative technique, functioning as a ‘coach’ for surgeons.
“I leveraged a convolutional neural network to teach computers to classify and localize surgical instruments in videos in real time. Increasing accuracy for tool presence detection by 28 percent and tracking instrument locations, my approach enabled rich analysis of surgical performance. It expedites surgical skill assessment through automated extraction of visual and quantitative metrics, such as tool usage patterns and trajectories, movement range and motion economy. My results have been validated by surgeons, setting the stage for building a context-aware system that can assist surgeons during procedures and provide targeted feedback.”
Jin’s other recognition includes a best paper award at the 2017 Machine Learning for Health Workshop at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, and being named a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar. Jin is also a John Near Endowment recipient and a National Merit Scholarship awardee. She plays classical violin and has performed at Carnegie Hall. Read more in this Harker News story. https://staging.news.harker.org/senior-amy-jin-one-of-five-in-the-country-to-win-cutler-bell-prize-in-high-school-computing/
Update: Aug. 25, 2017
Great article by participant Edwin Su, grade 11, on what he gleaned from this great program:
http://inianislandsinstitute.org/2017/08/04/harker-school-to-inian-islands-institute/
Update July 13, 2017
While in Alaska, the Human Ecology class members continued to explore the issues they had been learning about in California, with an Alaskan focus. “We learned about fisheries and energy issues and had lots of opportunities to connect with nature,” noted Kate Schafer, who, with fellow upper school science teacher Chris Spenner, is leading the class.
Highlights included a hike to the outflow of the Mendenhall Glacier, a morning spent with a Tlingit tribal elder at the Alaska State Museum and a day spent on Glacier Bay with ample wildlife sightings including grizzly bears, mountain goats, whales, Steller sea lions, puffins, marbled murrelets and many other species of birds, and spectacular views of the Margerie Glacier.
“Students really appreciated the friendliness and freedom they experienced during their time spent in the small town of Gustavus,” said Schafer. “While there, we met with the author of a book we read about John Muir, did some trail maintenance with some local high school students and visited the hydropower plant that provides electricity for the town.”
The course culminated in four nights out at the Hobbit Hole on the Inian Islands, where the group, isolated from the internet and outside world, really got to connect with nature. Students gave up their phones during the time at the Hobbit Hole as a way to be better present in the moment and appreciate the experience of being at such an isolated place.
“Overall, the course was an amazing experience for all,” said Schafer. “Students will be sharing their final projects at an event in October and some will also be traveling to New Orleans in December to share what they’ve learned with a wider audience at the American Geophysical Union conference.” Go Nature Eagles!
June 27, 2017
Harker’s Human Ecology students sojourned last week to Bodega Bay for a stay at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab to learn about marine science, especially in the context of fisheries and the impact of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems. The group, led by Harker upper school science teachers Kate Schafer and Chris Spenner, conducted research on conditions in the tide pools and presented results to a group of students visiting from the Lawrence Hall of Science.
Students in the Human Ecology: Our Place in Nature class spend 10 days in California exploring our place in nature, not just as scientists, but as policymakers, journalists, artists and concerned citizens. They then spend 10 days in southeast Alaska, in and around Glacier Bay, exploring the same themes in a different place and culture, among different people.
After Bodega Bay, the group headed to the Pescadero area, where they camped under the redwoods at Butano State Park and continued their exploration of nature and human impact. While there, in addition to experiencing the beauty of the place, the group learned about the complex issues of land use and farming in areas with vital habitat for salmon and other endangered species.
They studied the issue of sustainable farming, both from the perspective of sustaining the land and providing sustainable conditions for people working on the land. The group also visited Pie Ranch and baked some delicious strawberry rhubarb pies with ingredients harvested from the farm, then met with Ben Ranz from an organization in Pescadero called Puente. This group is dedicated to providing support to the San Mateo coastal community members, many of whom are immigrant farm workers from Mexico. The group is now in Alaska.
“The trip was amazing and we are heading off on our first full day in Juneau,” said Schafer. We’ll be updating this story as the reports come in!
Seniors Evani Radiya-Dixit, Arjun Subramaniam and Manan Shah were selected as three of the 40 national finalists in this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Society for Science & the Public announced this morning. These three finalists represent the most from any school in the country, and are among three of five finalists hailing from the Bay Area. This number also ties the Harker record of three finalists set in 2015.
The students will be headed to Washington, D.C., in March for the final competition, where $1.8 million in prizes will be up for contention. During their visit, they will have the opportunity to meet with national leadership and present their work to the National Geographic Society.
—-
Nine Harker students were among the 300 scholars named today in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly the Intel Science Talent Search). Seniors Kai Ang, Angela Kim, Sandip Nirmel, Srivatsav Pyda (not pictured), Evani Radiya-Dixit, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Scott Song and Arjun Subramaniam made up the largest group of scholars from a single California high school and tied with New York’s Jericho High School and Maryland’s Montgomery Blair High School for the largest number from a single school in the nation.
Each student will receive a $2,000 cash prize, and an additional $2,000 will be awarded to Harker as one of the schools that produced this year’s STS scholars.
On Jan. 24, the Society for Science & the Public will announce this year’s 40 STS finalists, who will travel to Washington, D.C., in March to compete for $1.8 million in prizes.
Manan Shah, grade 12, was awarded second place in the individual category at the national Siemens Competition award ceremony in Washington, D.C., this morning! His win brings a $50,000 scholarship. The ceremony was live-streamed from Washington. Anita Chetty, science department chair noted, “We have not achieved this level in the individual category before. I join our entire K-12 team in celebrating this outstanding achievement for our school!” Heartiest congratulations to Manan!
UPDATE: Nov. 7, 2016
In early November, the Siemens Foundation announced that senior Manan Shah is a national finalist in the 2016 Siemens Competition. Shah’s work – a computational model designed to speed up and increase the accuracy of assessing the severity and growth of breast cancer tumors – won him top individual honors and a $3,000 scholarship.
Shah now moves on to the final stage of the competition in Washington, D.C., which will take place in early December. A total of $500,000 in scholarships will be distributed to winners, and two contestants will be awarded the top prize of $100,000
The Siemens Foundation announced on Oct. 20 that Harker senior Manan Shah and juniors Randy Zhao and Rajiv Movva were named regional finalists in this year’s Siemens Competition. These three students will compete in November for a chance to move on to the final stage of the competition in Washington, D.C. One of the country’s most prestigious science competitions, the Siemens Competition rigorously evaluates individual and team research projects submitted by high school students and awards more than $600,000 in scholarships through regional and national events.
Earlier this week, 19 Harker students were named Siemens semifinalists, the most of any school in California. More than 1,600 projects were submitted for the 2016 competition, and 498 students were named semifinalists. Harker’s semifinalists make up 3.8% of the total.
Harker’s semifinalists for 2016 are Rishab Gargeya, Joyce Huang, Nikhil Manglik, Connie Miao, Sandip Nirmel, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Scott Song and Arjun Subramaniam, all grade 12; and Akhil Arun, Jerry Chen, Amy Jin, Jimmy Lin, Rajiv Movva, Sahana Srinivasan, Justin Xie, Kevin Xu, Shaya Zarkesh and Randy Zhao, all grade 11.
“Amazing process and outcomes from our powerhouse science departments,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school, noted the high number of student submissions to the competition (40 in all) and said, “It is great to see such participation and involvement in research. Thank you to all science teachers who contribute to that love of science and curiosity.”
Anita Chetty, upper school science chair, recognized the efforts of the science faculty at the lower and middle schools, exclaiming, “The upper school science department celebrates with our amazing colleagues in the lower school who lay the foundation and the middle school that develops our farm team!”
Congratulations to Anooshree Sengupta, grade 11, who will present her research at the American Medical Informatics Association’s 40th annual symposium, to be held Nov. 12-16 in Chicago. Each year, AMIA selects just five individually researched high school student projects to present at the symposium. Sengupta, who conducted her research this past summer at the University of California, San Francisco, will attend the event with upper school computer science chair Eric Nelson.