Alex Han, Gr. 12 and Revanth Kosaraju, Gr. 10, received special recognition at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), held May 9-14 in downtown San Jose. Han won a $4,000 scholarship from the U.S. Navy and a trip to the London International Youth Science Forum, taking place July 28-Aug. 11. Kosaraju received a $500 award from the American Psychological Association.
The ISEF featured 1,600 finalists from nearly 60 countries. Han and Kosaraju won the privilege to appear at the ISEF at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship in March; it was the first time since 2007 that Harker had two finalists representing the school. “It is a really big deal to win an award at ISEF since these represent the best projects from around the world,” said upper school science teacher Kate Schafer.
[Update] Andrew Zhou, 2010 valedictorian and member of the United States Physics Team, arrived in College Park, Md., this morning with the other 19 members of the team to begin training camp. Five of these students will be selected to represent the U.S. at the International Physics Olympiad this summer in Zagreb, Croatia. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has posted a press release on their website detailing the team’s welcome ceremony.
May 3, 2010 Harker has another physics Olympian! Senior Andrew Zhou has qualified as a member of the 2010 U.S. Physics Olympics Team, only one of 20 nationwide. Seven Harker students were semifinalists; Zhou is the only one to be selected for the team and this is his second time around.
Zhou was a team member in 2009, but was not selected for the final five; Harker alumnus (then senior)Anand Natarajan’09was one of the five selected for the 2009 international squad and won a gold medal in 2009.
Zhou will first attend physics camp May 22-31, then find out if he will be one of five selected for the 41st International Physics Olympiad to be held from July 17-25, 2010, in Zagreb, Croatia, where more than 400 student scholars from 90 nations will test their knowledge in physics.
The U.S. Physics Olympiad Program was started in 1986 by American Association of Physics Teachers to promote and demonstrate academic excellence. Over the past ten years, every U.S. Physics Team member traveling to the International Physics Olympiad has returned with a medal.
Harker was selected as the best overall national team in the “9th/10th Level” category in this year’s JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society) competition. Coached by upper school math teacher Anthony Silk, the team of Gr. 10 students Lucy Cheng, Alexander Hsu, Revanth Kosaraju, Jeffrey Kwong, Ramya Rangan, Pavitra Rengarajan, Katie Siegel and Albert Wu won a $2,500 cash prize and a commemorative trophy. Each member of the team received a medal and certificate for their efforts.
The Harker Gr. 9 time also fared well in the competition, placing eighth in Division 2 among 46 teams. Harker’s four 11th/12th Level teams placed fourth, fifth, 17th and 19th out of the 166 teams competing in Division 2.
More than 10,000 students from 42 states competed in this year’s competition, which tasked students with finding ways to purify water as well as assess current water purification methods. Every year, JETS holds national team and individual competitions to promote engineering and technology careers to today’s youth.
Two teams of Gr. 8 students were recently declared winners in the Southwest Pacific Region for this year’s eCybermission contest.
Dubbed the Dust Busters, Sharon Babu, Allen Cheng, Albert Chu and Daniel Pak won first place and each received a $3,000 savings bond. They will also travel to Baltimore in June for the National Judging Event to compete against three other teams at the same grade level. In the past five years that Harker has participated in the eCybermission competition, five teams have advanced to this level.
Vikas Bhetanabhotla, Divyahans Gupta and Brian Tuan, collectively known as Analytic Trio, won the criteria award for Application of Science, Math and Technology. The award included a $2,000 savings bond for each member of the team.
Every year, schools from across the country compete in the web-based eCybermission competition, which has students solve problems in their community by utilizing their skills with science, math and technology.
On April 13, Namrata Anand, Gr. 12, was presented with a county commendation from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. She was honored for being a national finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search. Anand traveled to Washington, D.C., to compete against 39 other students from around the country. The commendation mentioned the coverage of her achievement in the San Jose Mercury News.
To get to the finals, Anand reached conclusions about the Andromeda galaxy that could help scientists locate areas with a high likelihood of containing extraterrestrial life.
The commendation was presented by Ken Yeager, president of the board of supervisors, to R.K. Anand, Namrata’s father. He accepted on his daughter’s behalf, as she was busy rehearsing for the upper school production of “Les Miserables.”
Harker ‘s middle and upper schools were once again big winners at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship, pulling in more than 40 awards. Two upper school students, Alex Han, Gr. 12 and Revanth Kosaraju, Gr. 10, walked away with grand prizes for “Best of Championship” in the Biological Sciences category. Both were awarded a trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May.
Also winning in the Biological Sciences category was Josephine Chen, Gr. 11, who received a First Award and a $100 prize for the best technical paper from the Dr. Paul X Callahan Technical Paper Awards.
Kosaraju also won a First Award for Individual Project in the Behavioral/Social category, as did Aditi Joshi (Honorable Mention, Individual Project) and Max Lan (First Award, Individual Project), both Gr. 11.
Han also took home First Awards for Individual Project and Technical Paper in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category, where junior Jason David Young earned an Honorable Mention for Individual Project.
Harker US winners in the Medicine/Health/Gerontology category were Jeanette Chin (Second Award, Technical Paper), Supraja Swamy (Second Award, Technical Paper) and Isaac Madan (Honorable Mentions for Individual Project and Technical Paper), all Gr. 11 and Pranav Sharma, Gr. 9 (Honorable Mention, Individual Project).
A trio of Harker students performed well in the Engineering category, with senior Andrea Lincoln winning Second Awards for Individual Project and Technical Paper, junior Kiran Vodrahalli earning awards from Yale Science and Engineering Association, United States Army and more and sophomore Ashley King walking away with a first place bronze medallion award from the United States Army.
Upper school award winners in other categories were senior Tiffany Chien in Chemistry (First Award, Individual Project), senior Andrew Zhou earning a First Award in the Technical Paper category, senior Kevin Zhang in Earth/Space Sciences (Honorable Mention, Inividual Project) and Paulomi Bhattacharya, Gr. 9, in Environmental Science (First Award, Individual Project).
Harker had nearly 30 award winners at the middle school level. Winners in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category were Christopher Fu (Second Award, Team Project), Brendon Yu (Second Award Team Project), Mercedes Chien (Labcoat Award for Lab Bench Finesse) and Vikram Sundar (First Award, Individual Project), all Gr. 8.
In Environmental Sciences, awards were won by eighth graders Saachi Jain (Second Award, Team Project), Kristine Lin (Second Award, Team Project) and Aditya Batra (Honorable Mention, Individual Project).
Winners in Zoology were Divya Kalidindi (Second Award, Team Project), Namita Ravi (Second Award, Team Project), Pooja Chopra (Honorable Mention, Team Project) and Maneesha Panja (Honorable Mention, Team Project), all Gr. 8, while Anika Ayyar won a Second Award for Individual Project in Botany.
Harker’s biggest category was Physics, with a total of 13 winners: seventh graders Archana Podury (IEEE Award from Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), Corey Gonzales (First Award, Team Project), Madhu Nori (First Award, Team Project), Apoorva Rangan (First Award, Team Project), Allen Huang (Honorable Mention, Individual Project), Hemant Kunda (Second Award, Team Project), Neha Sunil (Second Award, Team Project), Sahana Rangarajan (First Award, Team Project), Vivek Sriram (First Award, Team Project), Rahul Balikrishnan (Second Award, Team Project) and Avinash Nayak (First Award, Team Project) and eighth graders Raymond Xu (First Award, Team Project) and Vikas Bhetanabotla (First Award, Individual Project).
Middle school award winners in the Engineering category were Neil Movva, Gr. 7 (Second Award, Individual Project) and Brian Tuan, Gr. 8 (Honorable Mention from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering).
Finally, Jennifer Dai, Gr. 8, won a First Award in the Chemistry category.
In addition to the dozens of student awards, upper school science teacher Kate Schafer was named one of two Outstanding High School Teachers. The upper school received a $100 prize from the Wireless Communication Alliance and $1,000 from the Whitney Education Foundation for having the best biological science project. The middle school received an Outstanding School Award from the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association.
To see the full list of student winners, including all awards won and project titles, visit the middle school and upper school winners pages on the Synopsys Championship website, or download the lists of the middle school winners and upper school winners in PDF format.
Congratulations to all of Harker’s award winners at this year’s Synopsys Science and Technology Championship!
Namrata Anand, Gr. 12, recently earned second place in the Intel Science Talent Search People’s Choice Awards. Anand was one of 40 national finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, the winners of which were chosen by Intel and the Society of Science and the Public in March. Following the contest, an online vote was conducted at http://www.inspiredbyeducation.com/ to decide the People’s Choice winners.
Anand received a Dell Netbook for taking second place with her project, which studied the chemical composition of the Andromeda galaxy. The findings she made in the project could lead to the discovery of areas with a high likelihood of containing extraterrestrial life.
Alex Han, Gr. 12 and Jacqueline Wang, Gr. 9, have been selected as two of the five delegates from the Northern California region to attend the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS), held in Bethesda, Md., from April 28 to May 2. Han also earned a $1,000 scholarship and will present at the symposium.
The two students earned the all-expenses-paid trip to Bethesda after presenting their own scientific research at the regional JSHS held at the University of Nevada, Reno from March 18-20. At the national symposium, Han and Wang will each have the opportunity to compete for military-sponsored scholarships.
New York Times op-ed writer Thomas L. Friedman mentioned Harker’s Intel Talent Search finalist Namrata Anand, Gr. 12, in his March 20 column after attending the Intel awards dinner. In his column, he listed all of the 40 Intel finalists and spoke specifically on his discussion with Anand:
“Before the dinner started, each contestant stood by a storyboard explaining their specific project. Namrata Anand, a 17-year-old from The Harker School in California, patiently explained to me her research, which used spectral analysis and other data to expose information about the chemical enrichment history of ‘Andromeda Galaxy.’ I did not understand a word she said, but I sure caught the gleam in her eye.” The column also ran in the San Jose Mercury News.
Seven Harker students are among the 300 semifinalists nationwide still in the running for the U.S. Physics Olympiad Team! Almost half the Harker students participating were chosen and three of the seven are sophomores.
Semifinalists are Adam Perelman, Kevin Zhang and Andrew Zhou, all Gr. 12; sophomores are Lucy Cheng, Michelle Deng, Ramya Rangan and Albert Wu. This is Zhou’s second time around as a semifinalist.
About 3,200 students nationwide took the initial test for the team, titled the Fnet=ma Exam, in January. The International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) is a nine-day competition among pre-university students from more than 80 nations. The 2010 Olympiad will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, from July 17-25.
Harker’s seven semifinalists will take a second exam to try to make the final round of 24 members. In May, those 24 prospective team members will travel to the University of Maryland-College Park to the U.S. Physics Team training camp to enjoy nine days of intense studying, including mystery labs, daily exams and problem solving. At the end of that camp, five students and an alternate will be selected as the “traveling team” to represent the U. S. at the IPhO.
Last year, three Harker students, Anand Natarajan ’09,Vikram Nathan ’09 and Zhou, then Gr. 11, were chosen to be among the 2009 final 24, and Natarajan made the team and earned a gold medal in Mexico at the 2009 IPhO in July, 2009. The five-person U.S. team earned four golds and a silver, tying for second with India and Korea, and coming in behind the Chinese team, which earned five gold medals.
The U.S. Physics Olympiad program is a joint initiative of the American Association of Physics Teachers in partnership with the American Institute for Physics and several other scientific associations.