Jan. 26, 2011
Intel representatives returned to Harker today to announce that Nikhil Parthasarathy and Rohan Mahajan, both grade 12, were named finalists in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. They will travel to Washington, D.C., from March 10-15 to compete as two of the 40 finalists selected from around the country.
The announcement, made at a special lunchtime assembly, was accompanied by the news that Harker is the only school in the country with more than one finalist. Notably, California this year finally surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of finalists, with a total of 11 students. Harker had a record seven semifinalists in the contest, this year.
Parthasarathy’s project used recently gathered data to study the structures of distant galaxies and find out how similar or different they were to galaxies in the local universe. He was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Dr. Kamson Lai, a postdoctoral scholar at the U.C. Santa Cruz department of astrophysics.
Mahajan, whose project involved developing a hydrogen-producing solar cell as a source of renewable clean energy, worked with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at U.C. Santa Cruz, and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher and, incidentally, Parthasarathy’s proud mother.
Today’s announcement followed on the heels of one two weeks ago, when a record seven Harker students were named semifinalists in the competition.
Both students will receive a cash prize of $5,000 upon their arrival in Washington, D.C., and will compete for the top prize of $100,000, as well as meet Nobel laureates and members of congress.
Jan. 12, 2011
Harker set a new California record for Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists on Jan. 12, with seven students being named at a special morning assembly.
The students – Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young, all grade 12 – were each awarded a $1,000 prize and have a chance to travel to Washington, D.C., in March for the final competition. The first place winner will receive a $100,000 grand prize.
Projects ranged from researching optical coatings for telescope lenses to comparisons of distant galaxies to those more proximate. Each student partnered with university-level mentors to perform the research for his or her project. Most students also had a Harker mentor to help the students write and finalize the project. Bhatnagar worked with Nicole Giuliani, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. Her Harker mentor was Savitha Sastry, upper school biology teacher. Dr. Sophie Kusy, postdoctoral research fellow, and Joel Dudley, bioinformatics specialist, both from Stanford, worked together with Josephine Chen, whose Harker mentor was Anita Chetty, science department chair.
Benjamin Chen was mentored by Dr. Raja Guhathakurta, professor at UC Santa Cruz’s department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Dr. Evan Kirby, a postdoctoral scholar at CalTech. Chris Spenner, upper school physics teacher, acted as his Harker mentor. Mahajan completed his project with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Santa Cruz and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher.
Parthasarathy was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz and mother of Harker alumna Holly Faber MS ’89, and Dr. Kamson Lai, postdoctoral scholar at UCSC’s department of astrophysics. Lick Observatory’s David Hilyard, optician, Brian Dupraw, optician, and Dr. Andrew Philips, astronomy researcher, acted as Tu’s mentors. Her Harker mentor was Dr. Mark Brada, upper school physics teacher. Jason Young completed his project with mentorship from Dr. Wei Wang, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and UC San Diego and was mentored at Harker by Dr. Matthew Harley, upper school biology teacher. Finalists will be announced in two weeks.
In October, Jacqueline Wang, grade 10, was named a regional finalist for this year’s Siemens Competition. Harker regional semifinalists were Roshni Bhatnagar, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy and Supraja Swamy, all grade 12.
Each Harker student entering the competition worked with a mentor to do research for their projects. Parthasarathy, for instance, worked with Dr. Sandra Faber, mother of Holly Faber MS ’89, and Wang collaborated with a mentor from Stanford University.
More than 2,000 students from 36 states participated in this year’s Siemens Competition. Of those, 312 became regional semifinalists, and were regional finalists. The mentorships were set up through Harker’s internship program, which is coordinated by Anita Chetty, science department chair. “The entire science department shares in this great achievement,” Chetty said.
In June, a paper co-authored by James Seifert, grade 12, was accepted to the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie. Recognized as the top chemistry journal, Angewandte Chemie accepts fewer than five percent of the papers that are submitted for publication.
The study, titled “Amphiphilic Self-Assembly of an n-Type Nanotube,” which was completed while Seifert worked in the chemistry department at Ohio State University, has been published online (purchase required) and will appear as a cover story in the November hard copy edition of the journal. For the project, Seifert worked with graduate student Hui Shao in preparing compounds that were used to conduct the research. “The work in the paper actually involves three research groups from two universities,” said Dr. Jon Parquette, professor of chemistry at Ohio State. “However, Hui and James made the initial discoveries that were further investigated by these groups.”
Recently, the article was featured by the online chemistry magazine ChemViews.
Anne West, grade 12, is featured in a front-page article in the Oct. 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal that chronicles her mission to analyze her family’s genome. John, Anne’s father, had the family’s genome sequenced last year after being diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in 2003. However, the resulting mass of raw data presented the Wests with the problem of compiling the information into something they could interpret.
Nathan Pearson, director of research for Knome, Inc., a personal genomics company, is quoted in the Journal piece as saying, “If you got an auctioneer to read out loud someone’s genome at six letters every second, it would take 34 years to finish.”
Using her family’s computer, Anne West decided to take on the monumental task of boiling down the data, a job typically reserved for large teams of scientists with highly advanced degrees. West, who has had a passion for biology since grade 5, has been using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to decipher the data.
According to the Journal, the work is daunting but rewarding. West spent six months decoding just one of 20,000 genes, but her work has led to some big opportunities, such as her summer stint in the laboratory of Harvard and MIT scientist George Church. In April, she was a speaker at the Genomes, Environments, Traits (GET) Conference in Boston, where she received business cards from scientists in the field. She is also working with researchers in Seattle on a paper that is partly based on the Wests’ genome, and in September traveled to a genomics conference in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., where she appeared as a panelist.
West thanked her science teachers at Harker, saying they played a large part in fostering the love of biology that has led her to this point. She credited Catherine Le, grade 5 science teacher, for sparking her initial decision to pursue biology; Scott Kley Contini, middle school science teacher, for his “rigorous course”; and Gary Blickenstaff, upper school biology teacher, who assisted her with the project and helped with her presentations at the Personal Genomes Conference and the GET Conference. “I’ve worked hard and of my own motivation, but it was never in isolation nor without help,” she said.
Vikas Bhetanabhotla, who starts Gr. 9 in the fall, won first place in the aerodynamics and hydrodynamics category at the California State Science Fair (CSSF) in May. Vikas’ project, “A Study of Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion and Dimensionless Numbers,” earned him a medal and a $250 prize.
Vikas’ trip to the fair was assured in March at the Synopsys Championship, where he also won a first place award. He made adjustments to his projects during the time between the Synopsys event and the CSSF. At the fair Vikas was interviewed for four hours by 14 judges. His mother, Padmasri Behtanabhotla, said,“Every one of them was very appreciative of the amount of work he had done, his analysis and in-depth understanding of the subject.”
[Update] Riya Chandra has been named a top 10 national finalist in the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge! She traveled to New York in early October to participate in live science challenges and though she did not win, received a $1,ooo consolation prize.
[Posted Aug. 4 2010]
Incoming student Riya Chandra, who will start Gr. 6 this fall, was recently named a state semifinalist in this year’s Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist challenge. Chandra received a $250 cash prize and a special plaque to honor her achievement. In addition, the budding scientist’s work was featured in a story in the Tri-City Voice newspaper which serves cities in southern Alameda County. The top 10 national finalists, who will travel to the finals in New York City in October, are set to be announced this month. Founded in 1999, the competition accepts video presentations on various topics from students in grades 5 through 8 located throughout the country. Chandra’s project discussed germs and disease prevention.
Tags: In the News, Science, topscience
Upper school physics students recently took first place in their region in the annual American Association of Physics Teachers’ Physics Bowl. The United States is comprised of 15 regions and Harker ranked third across all regions. Approximately 4,500 students from 200 schools took the examination across the United States, Canada, China and the Republic of Korea.
Harker competes in the division two portion of the competition, which is for students who have completed a year of physics. All of our students enrolled in AP physics B and C take the examination. They do not do any special preparation for the test, other than their already rigorous class work, making their accomplishments all the more impressive.
On June 6, students Sierra Lincoln, Gr. 9, Shreya Nathan, Gr. 11, and recent graduate Vivian Wong were recognized by the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Each received the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing.
The students were among 25 individuals from 11 Bay Area and Central Coast counties honored at a ceremony held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. The award recognizes young women for their aspirations and achievements in computing-related fields. Winners also received a $250 gift card, a one-gigabyte flash card, memberships to the Computer History Museum and the Tech Museum plus an invitation to spend a day at Google.
Imagine yourself driving down Saratoga Avenue, taking the usual route to the upper school campus, when suddenly the orange low-fuel sign turns on, warning that your tank is low and you need to fill up. But stopping at the nearest gas station does not guarantee the best price. You find yourself scanning the stations that flank the road, looking for the cheapest price.
With the mobile application that Harker students Shefali Netke, Gr. 12, Vivian Wong, Gr. 12, Anika Radiya-Dixit, Gr. 9, Sheridan Jones, Gr. 11 and Kristi Lui, Gr. 11, developed as part of Iridescent Learning’s Spring Technovation Challenge, searching for cheap gas prices would not slow you down.
On April 22, Iridescent held Pitch Night at Microsoft’s Mountain View office, giving students the opportunity to present their ideas in front of venture capitalists. This challenge is a collaboration between Iridescent, the not-for-profit dedicated to providing children in underserved communities with access to cutting-edge science, and Girls in Tech, an organization that aims to empower and promote women in technology.
The team placed third in the competition and was invited to attend the Women of Vision Symposium on May 12.
The five girls worked closely with industry professionals Julie Greenberg and Yasmin Khan to develop their creative mobile app. For eight weeks leading up to Pitch Night, these talented young women worked with the two mentors and participated in hands-on workshops, learning about programming, communication and business fundamentals that were essential in creating a comprehensive proposal.
They created Gas Guy’d, a mobile application that allows drivers to locate accurate, cheap gas prices with an easy-to-use interface and voice activation. Features include GPS directions, real-time prices, a favorites option and detailed station descriptions.
Serving as CEO, Netke presented a four-minute pitch to venture capitalists Katherine Barr, Adeo Ressi and Mendel Rosenblum, and all the teammates participated in a four-minute Q&A after the presentation.
Netke said that Anita Chetty, biology teacher and advisor of Women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (WiSTEM), was instrumental in motivating the group.
“I think that all of us really learned how to work better in a team environment. We do group projects in school, but this environment was different in the sense that there was much more at stake,” Netke said. “The competition also helped a lot in seeing how much work goes into the entire process of developing an application. We did not just do the building stage or just the presentation; we built the application from scratch, developed a business plan, presented the pitch – all the steps.”