Cynthia Chen, grade 9, earned the second place prize in the Broadcom MASTERS Competition in the science division! She will receive a $2,500 award for her efforts. Nice article in the Mercury: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/05/school-scene-students-win-science-honors/. Congratulations Cynthia!
Update: Another great article on Chen’s project! https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/blog/eureka-lab/teen-develops-water-saving-pods-seeds
UPDATE: Oct. 7, 2016
The Los Altos Town Crier recently published a story about the project that earned freshmen Aarzu Gupta and Maya Shukla semifinalist recognition in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition.
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UPDATE: Sept. 23, 2016
Earlier this week, Cynthia Chen, now grade 9, was named one of 30 national finalists in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition. The second finalist in Harker’s history, Chen has received a $500 cash prize and will head to Washington, D.C. in late October for the to compete for $100,000 in awards.
Chen’s project aimed to alleviate the problems caused by California’s ongoing drought by creating a capsule that housed seeds surrounded by water crystals, allowing them to grow with just a third of the water usage.
Good luck to Cynthia this October!
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Last week, the Society for Science & the Public announced that Harker freshmen Cynthia Chen, Aarzu Gupta and Maya Shukla were among 300 students nationwide named semifinalists in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition. Chen, Gupta and Shukla entered the competition last year while in eight grade. A total of 2,434 applicants entered this year’s competition.
The Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering Rising Stars) competition highlights the work of middle school scientists from across the country. The top 10 percent of middle school participants at society-affiliated science fairs are nominated to participate, and must then submit an application to enter the competition. Each application is rigorously reviewed by professionals in science, engineering and education.
Finalists are scheduled to be announced next week. Stay tuned!
Sept. 9, 2016
Junior Amy Dunphy’s project, titled “Poison Oak: Neutralized,” received a 2016 Popular Mechanics Youth Breakthrough Award. The awards celebrate “research, innovators, scientists and students who’ve made the world a little better this year.”
The San Jose Mercury News published a story yesterday on Gargeya’s achievement, noting that he “appears to have already swayed Google judges.” Read the full story.
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Rishab Gargeya, rising senior and Saratoga resident, was recently named a regional finalist in the international Google Science Fair 2016! Thousands of participants from more than 100 countries entered their projects in the competition. Gargeya’s project is one of only 100 finalists selected from around the globe. It is currently one of the top 50 projects in the 16-18 age category identified as having the potential to change the world.
The project summary notes, “This study develops a novel smartphone-based diagnostic tool that can automatically detect any retinal abnormality within seconds. Through the use of a low-cost external ophthalmic lens attachment, individuals can diagnose themselves with their smartphones at any time, allowing them to seek medical attention accordingly to prevent any potential vision complications.”
Harker sent a number of budding scientists to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held May 8-13 in Phoenix, and four came home with significant awards.
Jonathan Ma, grade 12, an Intel Science Talent Search finalist this year, received a First Award of $1,500 from the American Statistical Association at Intel ISEF for his project, “Genomics-Based Cancer Drug Response Prediction Through the Adaptive Elastic Net.”
Amy Dunphy, grade 10, was awarded $1,200 by the China Association for Science and Technology for her project, “Preventing Urushiol (Poison Oak) Induced Dermatitis by Deactivating the Allergen.”
The team of Rishab Gargeya and Manan Ajay Shah, both grade 11, won a Third Award of $1,000 for their project, “Automated Diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy Severity in Color Fundus Images Using a Novel Synthesis of Biological and Data Driven Approaches.”
Update: Harker has a third student in the Broadcom MASTERS science competition! Cameron Jones, who started 9th grade at Harker this year, is a semi-finalist along with classmates Anjay Saklecha and Krish Kapadia.
Jones graduated from Corte Madera School last June and his project involves infusing fine carbon powder into rubber bands so they can be used to measure biometrics. Check out his story in The Almanac. Best of luck to all three boys in the finalist judging, tomorrow! Go Harker Researchers!
Anjay Saklecha and Krish Kapadia, both grade 9, were selected as semifinalists in the 2015 Broadcom MASTERS, a program of Society for Science & the Public. The pair were nominated after winning first place last spring in the medicine/health/gerontology category of the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science & Technology Championship for their project, “Determining the Efficacy of Different Methods to Assess the Level of Dehydration Using Human Saliva.”
“As a Broadcom MASTERS semifinalist, you have already proven your ability to succeed in these subjects, which will lead you to an exciting career in any field,” noted Allie Stifel, Broadcom MASTERS program manager.
The next step in the Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering Rising Stars) takes place on Sept. 2, when 30 finalists will be announced from among the 300 semifinalists. Finalists will attend the Broadcom MASTERS Finals Week competition from Oct. 1-7, 2015 here in Silicon Valley, where they will present their research and compete in hands-on challenges for top prizes, including funds to attend a STEM summer camp, iPads and the Samueli Prize of $25,000.
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
This past weekend six Harker students participated in the ninth United States Invitational Young Physicists Tournament held at the Woodberry Forest School in Woodberry Forest, Va., and finished first, ahead of eight other teams from three continents.
The competition is the culmination of yearlong research into four problems spanning many aspects of classical physics including mechanics, fluid dynamics, experimental measurement, optics, wave behavior, magnetism, electrical circuits, etc.
The problems for the 2015 tournament were: 1) measure the Avogadro constant as precisely and accurately as possible; 2) build, analyze and optimize a Gauss rifle; 3) investigate and analyze the problem of the parametric resonance of a mass oscillating on the end of a spring; and 4) investigate and analyze the problem of the “teapot effect,” in which water clings to the underside of a surface as the water flows across the surface.
The tournament this year was the largest in its short history, with nine schools from three continents competing, including two schools from China, one school from Tunisia, and six schools from the United States.
The team from The Harker School came out on top, earning their third victory at the competition in the past five years. The members of the team were Vivek Bharadwaj, grade 11; Nitya Mani, grade 12; Elina Sendonaris, grade 11; Manan Shah, grade 10; Tong Wu, grade 11; and Jessica Zhu, grade 11. These students were supported by Alice Wu and Naman Jindal, both grade 11, in their research efforts leading up to the tournament. Dr. Mark Brada helped prepare the team and accompanied them on the trip.
Society for Science & the Public (SSP) announced today that 15 Harker seniors were named semifinalists in the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search, more than any other school in the country. In 2012, Harker had a record 11 semifinalists, so this year represents a new high watermark!
“Inquiry, curiosity and persistence embody the culture of The Harker School,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “The development of scientific thinking and effective communication of discoveries is part of instruction in all of the subjects we teach. This is a significant achievement for our school, yet it is a natural outcome of the daily work of our dedicated preschool-through-grade 12 faculty and our outstanding students. When I think of the diversity of research questions that our students posed and the significance of their findings, I am left with so much hope that our next generation will find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.”
More than 1,800 students from 460 high schools entered this year’s Intel Science Talent Search; from those entrants, 300 semifinalists were selected. Each semifinalist will receive a $1,000 cash prize and is eligible to become a finalist in this year’s contest. An additional $1,000 is awarded to each semifinalist’s school. Finalists receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the final stage of the competition, where more than $1 million in prizes will be awarded. SSP will announce the 40 national finalists in this year’s competition on Jan. 21.
This year’s semifinalists and their project titles are:
Shikhar Dixit (“Immunomodulation by Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Line ARPE-19”)
Andrew Jin (“A Machine Learning Framework to Identify Selected Variants in Regions of Recent Adaptation”)
Rohith Kuditipudi (“Bayesian Time Series Analysis of Liver Disease Progression”)
David Lin (“Characterizing Gravitationally Bound Halo Structures in Cosmological Dark Matter Simulations”)
Cindy Liu (“Characterizing Novel Binders as Tools for Understanding Chloride Transport Mechanisms”)
Neil Movva (“How do Teeth Grow? Characterizing the Morphogenesis of the Periodontal Ligament through Complementary Biomechanical and Histological Analysis”)
Pranav Reddy (“Differential Motif Discovery to Isolate Associated Sequences and Relevant Transcription Factors for Alzheimer’s in a Mouse Model”)
Anokhi Saklecha (“The Utilization of RGD-coated Gold Nanoprisms and Optical Coherence Tomography to Target alphavbeta3 integrin: A Novel Method to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells”)
Nikash Shankar (“A Potential Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease: Encapsulation of Curcumin within Polymeric PLGA-PEG Nanoparticles Protects Neuro2A Cells from Beta-Amyloid Induced Cytotoxicity and Improves Bioavailability”)
Sriram Somasundaram (“A Novel Design and Evaluation of Chitosan Nanoparticle Ocular Drug Delivery System Using Protein-Ligand Docking Simulations and pH Dependent Corneal Permeation”)
Kailas Vodrahalli (“Transporting Solar Energy Through Optical Waveguides for Concentrated Solar Power Applications”)
Steven Wang (“Computer-Aided Genomic Characterization of Colorectal Cancer Driver Genes for Oncogenic Transformation of Primary Colon Organoids”)
Menghua Wu (“Characteristics of Drug Combination Therapy in Oncology by Analyzing Clinical Trial Data on ClinicalTrials.gov”)
Leo Yu (“A Novel Algorithm to Unify CMIP5 Ensemble Climate Models for Optimal Climate Projections”)
Andrew Zhang (“The Dearth of Lithium-Rich Stars in Globular Clusters”)
The Science Talent Search, launched by SSP in 1942 in a partnership with Westinghouse, has since become one of the country’s most respected science contests for high school seniors. It has been sponsored by Intel since 1998. Congratulations to students, mentors and teachers, and good luck in the next round!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Every year, dozens of Harker’s upper school students submit projects to the Intel Science Talent Search and Siemens Competition. These projects, often created during summer internships at university science labs, are the result of months of research, writing and refinement. This feature highlights just a fraction of the amazing work being performed by Harker students every year. To read more about the projects on page 29, please go to our Science Projects 2014 section in Harker News, or search “perseverance.”
Roshni Pankhaniya Grade 12
For her project, “Analyzing First-Trimester MicroRNA as a Marker for Assessing Adverse Pregnancy Risk,” senior Roshni Pankhaniya researched at Stanford University’s Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC). She was especially interested in immunology. “When looking for an area of research, I focused on finding professors targeting specific disorders/diseases,” she said. Her mentors, Xuhuai Ji and Holden T. Maecker, “helped me come up with the basic experimental design of the project and advised me on how to conduct the data analysis.”
Pankhaniya found her research internship by searching for projects that she found interesting and contacting the professors working on them. “I chose to work on this specific project because preeclampsia is a reproductive condition faced by approximately 8 percent of women worldwide, is the leading cause of maternal mortality and could not be detected prior to 10 weeks gestation, the latest time period for preventative therapy,” she said. Her goal was to come up with a way of detecting preeclampsia before 10 weeks gestation in order to find ways to treat it and thus lower the number of maternal deaths.
“It was great being able to work with experts in the field in such an advanced technical setting,” Pankhaniya said. “In addition to doing research, I was able to attend lectures given by Stanford and visiting professors, as well as talk to other professors in the department about their research.”
Despite being a high school student, Pankhaniya found the staff at HIMC to be welcoming and respectful. “It was amazing how eagerly they welcomed a high school student into the lab and never for a moment did I feel that I was ‘just’ a high school student, but rather was a member of the team,” she recalled.
Among her most exciting moments during her research was discovering with the team that “we could use maternal cell MicroRNA to detect risk for preeclampsia prior to 10 weeks gestation. Our findings are really interesting in that they suggest that maternal cell MicroRNA plays a greater role in fetal development than placental cell MicroRNA. We will look to understand why that is so in the future.
“Overall,” Panhkaniya said, “this was one of the most fulfilling and most memorable experiences of high school due to interactions I was able to have with experts in the field and the research experience I gained.”
David Lin Grade 12
Senior David Lin turned to cosmology for his project, “Physical Properties and Evolution of Gravitationally Bound Halo Structures in Cosmological Dark Matter Simulations.”
“I chose this area of research since it was an interesting intersection of physics, computer science and astronomy,” Lin said. His project concerned the characteristics of dark matter halos, which play a key role in the formation of galaxies. “This knowledge will be useful in predicting how dark matter behaves in nonvirialized regions of space and will supplement existing galaxy formation theories.”
Lin was in good company during his time researching at the University of California, Santa Cruz, being mentored by Dr. Joel Primack and postdoctoral researcher Miguel Rocha. “One of the most exciting parts of my research was being able to work under such accomplished faculty,” he said. “For instance, [Primack] pioneered the famous LCDM Theory, which explains how the universe evolved after the Big Bang.”
Harker faculty, including upper school science teachers Chris Spenner and Anita Chetty, were instrumental in helping Lin find the right opportunity. “Many of the faculty like Mr. Spenner and Ms. Chetty helped me find my internship opportunity and helped edit my research paper afterward,” he said.
One of the most interesting parts of Lin’s research was how the team measured dark matter. “Most matter in the universe is composed of dark matter, which doesn’t interact with light and is therefore difficult to measure,” he said. “As such, we use computer simulations to model this matter to find how the universe evolves over time.”
Cindy Liu Grade 12
Cindy Liu, grade 12, enjoyed the work she was doing in science classes, so a research internship seemed like a natural next step. “I’ve always liked doing labs and reading articles in science classes, and I thought research would be a good way to learn more about a particular topic in a different way, not just through textbooks and lectures,” she said.
For her project, “Characterizing Novel Binders as Tools for Understanding Chloride Transport Mechanisms,” she researched at Stanford University’s molecular and cellular physiology department as well as under the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research (SIMR) program.
Because she enjoyed learning about the workings of the human body and cellular function, the program was a good fit. “I’m also considering pursuing medicine or biomedical engineering in the future, so this project seemed like a good way to test my interest in these areas,” she said.
Her research involved two proteins that were potential inhibitors of CLC, “a chloride-proton antiporter that moves chloride and protons across membranes,” Liu said. “If they are shown to bind to and inhibit CLC, they can be further characterized in order to help gain greater understanding of CLC structure and function.”
Liu found the experience to be rewarding, with some neat surprises. “This was my first time doing actual wet lab research, so I loved being able to set up the experiments and collect the raw data myself instead of just analyzing someone else’s data,” she said. “Also, since my project was part of a larger program for high school students, I got to meet other students with similar interests and listen to various presentations from graduate students, doctors and researchers – even a Nobel Prize winner!”
The resources and support Liu found at Harker proved invaluable in helping her discover this opportunity. “Harker has provided so many resources, from general information on various research opportunities to internships students can apply for directly through Harker,” she said. “Harker research and science teachers are also very supportive of students’ research ideas and goals.”
Liu would like to continue her studies in this field, but said she is keeping an open mind. “I hope to do science research in college, especially in molecular and cellular physiology if I get the chance. But I’m also open to exploring and learning about other fields as well!”
Rahul Balakrishnan Grade 12
Senior Rahul Balakrishnan’s interest in computer science led him to the Science Internship Program (SIP) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studied astronomy with mentor Angie Wolfgang, a graduate student. “I choose the astronomy field since it focuses on a broader application of computer science. I wanted to see programming at work outside of an office setting,” said Balakrishnan.
After seeing several Harker students complete successful internships at UC Santa Cruz, Balakrishnan began his own internship there after being alerted to the opportunity by science chair Anita Chetty. He found himself working in the university’s multi-disciplinary building, which was aptly named. “The research in this building was truly multidisciplinary, with a slight emphasis toward astronomy,” he said. “Not only did every floor sport a different field of science, but also I worked in the same room as other interns from the same program who were exploring projects related to cancer cells and marine animals.”
The overall atmosphere in the building was one of collaboration, with students helping one another in various ways. “Although we couldn’t collaborate in the specifics of each other’s projects, we aided each other through more general forms, such as coding, formatting spreadsheets and making PowerPoint presentations,” Balakrishnan said.
Balakrishnan’s project, “Designing a Spectroscopy Based Software to Produce Spectra of Kepler’s Binary Host Stars,” involved finding a way to identify binary stars. “We hoped to create a new system to confirm that two stars were binary stars, or gravitationally bound in some way.”
Collecting the data was one of the more fascinating parts of Balakrishnan’s internship. “I went to Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton to see how my mentor collected the pictures that I would analyze,” he recalled. “The process involved using a giant laser that shot a light into the clouds to simulate a star.
“Our program can turn an image of a star from a spectrometer into a fully developed spectral graph,” he added. “Although the project was hundreds of lines of code long, the most complex data structure I used was a two-dimensional list.”
Although he doesn’t plan to continue studying astronomy, the overall experience did enhance his applicable knowledge of computer science. “I will almost certainly use my acquired programming knowledge in future coding projects and college classes,” he said.
Neil Movva Grade 12
In an effort to explore the processes by which the body heals itself, senior Neil Movva studied under Dr. Jill Helms at the Hagey Lab for Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University. The eventual result was his research project, “Force Responsive Reconstruction: Characterizing the Morphogenesis of the Periodontal Ligament through Biomechanical and Histological Analysis.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by the body’s self-healing processes, and have done previous research on wound healing, tissue reconstruction and biomaterials,” Movva said. “Studying the reconstruction of ligaments is vital to furthering our understanding of how the human body adapts to changing physical conditions, and is especially relevant in the context of modern society’s growing senior population that will experience ligament wear and degeneration.”
In his research, Movva helped reignite a field that he believed had gone stagnant. “I employed advanced, novel techniques to identify and then demonstrate our new hypothesis regarding collagen fiber reconstruction at the cellular level,” he said, “bringing a new, data-backed viewpoint to the field after more than 50 years of stagnation.”
Helms “has been incredibly generous in sharing her knowledge and offering guidance as I learned the ropes of professional research,” he added.
He also found help among Harker’s science faculty, both in finding opportunities and refining his work. “Mr. Chris Spenner has fostered my interest in science research for the past three years, and graciously wrote recommendation letters to land me a position at Helms’ lab,” Movva said. “After I came back to school, Ms. Chetty patiently reviewed and edited my paper, while Mr. Spenner again lent his expertise to answer my questions as they popped up.”
One of the most exciting aspects of Movva’s work was the possibility of creating incredibly accurate computer models that can greatly assist doctors. “With the biologically corroborated framework I documented,” he said, “doctors may soon be able to perform rapid computer modeling of joints and other bony structures to determine the precisely optimal solution before beginning any invasive procedures.”
He also enjoyed seeing his work visualized through state-of-the- art technology. “A large part of my project focused on biomechanical computer-assisted modeling, and it’s hard to beat the excitement of seeing the first solution, visualized as a mesmerizing 3-D heatmap, after weeks of model construction and optimization,” he explained.
Karen Tu Grade 11
Although she had been interested in biology for some time, junior Karen Tu decided to embark on an internship to “get a better idea of what biological/wet lab research was like.”
She ended up at the pathology department at Stanford University, where she and a partner were mentored by graduate student Andrew Huh. “He basically taught us everything from basic biology to dissection techniques for our project,” Tu said.
While admitting that she “didn’t really have a specific interest in genetics or neurodegenerative diseases before my internship,” Tu developed an interest in the topic while researching for her project, “A Novel Tool for Monitoring Mitochondrial Calcium Dynamics in Dopaminergic Neurons.”
“I think that neurological diseases are really interesting because even a small change in the concentration of a certain substance in your brain could have drastic effects,” she said. “It’s really hard for doctors to diagnose and treat these diseases, so this field of research is also really important for improving our understanding of these diseases.”
Tu’s project was to develop [research that] may be used to test treatments for Parkinson’s disease. “In our project, we needed to find a single white-eyed fly from our entire stock,” she said. “This fly indicated that our project had succeeded, so we were really excited when we finally found it.”
Her colleagues also made her feel welcome and included. “Our lab had monthly lab meetings, where everyone would come down from their various rooms and discuss their research and the problems they encountered together,” Tu said. “The PI (principal investigator) whom I worked with and visiting researchers from other universities gave lectures, which were a highlight of the summer.”
One of the more fascinating things she learned during the course of her research, she said, was the stunning variety of fruit flies. “Before I started this project, I had no idea that fruit flies could have so many different physical variations,” she said. “There’s an entire spectrum of eye colors, wing shapes and other random appendages that they can develop.”
During a special assembly on Oct. 19, upper school students heard from three representatives of The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). Based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, CNS aims to prevent weapons of mass destruction from spreading by educating young people on issues of nonproliferation.
At the beginning of the assembly, Diana Nichols, former head of school and member of the Harker Board of Trustees, announced a new partnership with CNS and introduced CNS researcher and project manager Masako Toki. After giving a brief rundown of CNS and its goals, Toki told students about the center’s Critical Issues Forum (CIF), a program that enables high school students from around the world to come together to discuss and present research on nonproliferation topics. Next year’s CIF Student Conference will be held in Hiroshima, Japan, where the first of two atomic bombs was dropped in 1945 to hasten the end of World War II.
Another speaker was Tom Greg, a CNS graduate and researcher who served in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine and held a crucial role in the decision to launch nuclear missiles. He recounted the story of his visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum, which he called “one of the most intense experiences of my life.” He later decided to devote his graduate studies to researching nuclear nonproliferation.
The final speaker was Avner Cohen, senior fellow and professor at CNS, who spoke about the history of the nuclear age, including the discovery of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which had been hidden for many years. Cohen showed a video that recapped the advent of nuclear weapons, from the earliest threat of their potential use by the Nazis to the arms race that helped drive the Cold War.
Recently, a group of Harker students began working with computer science department chair Eric Nelson on nonproliferation studies. The students plan to research a topic yet to be chosen and present at the conference in Hiroshima.
“I see a future of going into politics or political science, and I’m also on the debate team, so it seemed like a topic that would be of interest to me,” said Zarek Drozda, grade 11, one of the students working with Nelson. “Certainly I’ve heard about nuclear problems through debate and such, so I think kind of doing debate awakened me to these issues and I found an interest in it.”
“We’re just every week trying to find different topics to cover that will take us in the right direction once the project gets started,” said Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari, grade 12, who discovered the topic through his interest in physics. “I’m really interested in physics and so I’ve been talking to Dr. Nelson about just nuclear weapons in general for the past year or so. He brought to my attention this project and I liked the politics part of it as well.”