Oct. 28, 2014: On Oct. 21, Daniela Lee, grade 12, and Sadhika Malladi, grade 11, were honored by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and the San Jose City Council with mayoral commendations for their success in the Google Science Fair. The students received the commendations at a meeting of the city council where they met both Mayor Reed and councilmember Ash Kalra.
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Sept. 23, 2014: The 2014 Google Science Fair has ended, and senior Daniela Lee and junior Sadhika Malladi have finished as global finalists in the 17-18 age group. Congratulations to these students for reaching this stage of this worldwide competition!
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Daniela Lee, grade 12, and Sadhika Malladi, grade 11, have been named finalists in the 2014 Google Science Fair in the 17-18 age group! The two entered as a team and their project is up for the Voter’s Choice Award. Voting is open until Sept. 13, so be sure visit the Google Science Fair website to cast your vote! Lee and Malladi also will compete at Google headquarters on Sept. 22 for a grand prize package that includes a National Geographic Expeditions excursion to the Galapagos Islands, a visit to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport and a $50,000 scholarship.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
After being diagnosed her freshman year with hypothyroidism – a disorder in which the thyroid gland fails to produce sufficient thyroid hormone, causing fatigue, lack of focus and other symptoms – Samantha Madala, now grade 11, became determined to help prevent health problems from interfering with children’s education.
To that end, Madala founded Healthy Scholars last year to raise awareness of health issues that could stymie education. In December, Madala and her team trekked to Varni, India, to perform screenings for medical problems that could be obstacles to learning. Healthy Scholars worked with organizations in India, including the Lions Club, NICE Hospital and LEAD Foundation, to offer blood pressure tests, individual medical consultations, dental exams, vision and hearing tests and more to nearly 600 schoolchildren.
That same month, Healthy Scholars kicked off a fundraising effort, raising nearly $4,000 via fundraising website Crowdrise. An additional $25,000 donation enabled Healthy Scholars to stage more screenings. Madala is planning another trip to Varni in early June. Stateside efforts are also on the agenda. “We also aim to hold a similar health screening camp for at-risk Native American youth in Montana,” she said.
Davis Dunaway, grade 10, and his collaborators on the “Grid” project, detailed below, will appear at the World Maker Faire in New York City this weekend. They will be sharing the lesson’s they’ve learned in order to help young makers and the adults mentoring them how to get their ideas off the ground.
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Rising sophomore Davis Dunaway started off his summer in a big way by participating in the White House Maker Faire. Dunaway and his friends were invited to showcase a project they created through the Young Makers program, which brings together young people ages 8-18 to create projects that are showcased at various events. Their creation is a massive version of the popular mobile puzzle game Flow Free, in which players connect identically colored dots. The version Dunaway and friends created is made up of 64 tiles that change colors when players step on them. It was designed and built by the students with the help of their parents and was also featured at Maker Faires in New York and San Francisco. The size of the game board allows the game to be played by multiple people simultaneously.
The White House Maker Faire took place June 18, which was declared a National Day of Making by President Barack Obama. “This event celebrates every maker — from students learning STEM skills to entrepreneurs launching new businesses to innovators powering the renaissance in American manufacturing,” Obama said in a presidential proclamation on June 17. “I am calling on people across the country to join us in sparking creativity and encouraging invention in their communities.”
This story was submitted by Harker lower school math teacher Stephanie Woolsey.
For the seventh time, third grade math students have earned first place in the region in the Continental Mathematics League contest. The region includes 15 U.S. states as well as the countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Held in a series of three meets, students individually complete six different questions at each meet, earning one point for each correct answer. The top six scores for each meet become the team score for that month, with the “team” members fluctuating based on who scores the highest each time. This year, two Harker students, Brian Chen and Saavi Kumar, earned perfect scores of 18. Both students earned a medal for being the top-scoring students at Harker, as well as an additional medal for being national winners. Certificates went to Connie Jiang, Michael Pflaging, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu, each of whom earned scores of 17, missing just one question over the three meets.
May 9, 2014
Great news from the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Washington D.C, where Junior Neil Movva presented in late April and came home with the first place prize in the engineering category for his project, A Novel Use of Infrared Light in Eye Tracking Systems.
Movva, who did all his research at Harker, earned a $12,000 scholarship and an invitation to the 2014 London International Youth Science Fair! “This has been without a doubt the most complete, satisfying and memorable science fair I have had the privilege of attending,” Movva said. “I want to thank all of you, again, for making this possible, and I’m excited to know that Harker will continue to offer these unique opportunities.”
This achievement is a historic double first for Harker, said Anita Chetty, science chair. “We have not placed first at JSHS and we have never gone abroad to an international fair,” she noted in her congratulatory note to Neil.
In early May, Movva made the tough choice to forego his trip to London in lieu of taking on an internship at Stanford University. “I’ll be stepping away a bit from engineering, working in a biomedical research division at the Hagey Lab at Stanford with a focus on reconstructive surgery,” said Movva. “I’ll be continuing some earlier research I have done on wound healing and tissue repair. I’ve already visited the lab a few times, and I’m really excited to work with the expert researchers in such an advanced technical setting. I’m looking forward to the summer!” Congrats, in duplicate, to Movva for his efforts on both science fronts!
March 24, 2014
Junior Neil Movva took second place at the Northern California/Western Nevada Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, held March 6-8 in Reno. This earned him a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete at the national symposium in late April.
Movva’s project dealt with eye trackers that allow people to use computers with eye movements. “For example, one could type on a keyboard just by focusing on individual keys,” Movva explained. His research showed that infrared (IR) light could be used to improve the accuracy of these devices. “Ultimately, I demonstrated a very simple IR eye tracker that was on par with high-end traditional systems,” said Movva.
In addition to second place at JSHS, the project also netted Movva first place in the engineering category at the 2013 Synopsys Science Fair. While the prospect of further success at the national level is enticing, Movva said the most exciting aspect is the opportunity to meet more students as passionate about research as him. “I’ll get to meet hundreds of my like-minded peers and learn about the best student research being done across the nation,” he said. “Just like the regional symposium, I’ll get to make new friends and meet with professionals to discuss and learn about fascinating topics from all fields of science.”
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!
David Zhu, grade 9, was recently announced as one of the finalists in the 2013-14 season of the USA Computing Olympiad (USACO). As one of 24 other finalists (out of more than 2,600 initial entrants), Zhu will travel to Clemson University in South Carolina for a summer training camp, during which four of the finalists will be chosen to represent the United States at the 2014 International Olympiad in Informatics.
The finalists were selected after a series of five contests, starting in November of last year, which had students tackling programming problems spanning various techniques and difficulty levels.
Congratulations and best of luck to David Zhu at the summer training camp!
This story originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Three Harker grads made Forbes magazine’s coveted “30 Under 30” lists, which showcase young movers and shakers working in various fields.
Sharing the spotlight with notable young celebrities such as snowboarder Shaun White, actress Olivia Wilde and activist Shiza Shahid are three talented Harker grads: Neil Mehta ’02, Surbhi Sarna ’03 and Ilya Sukhar ’03. The third-annual issue was released Jan. 6.
To compile the prestigious lists, Forbes consulted with experts in 15 industries to select the top 30 in each category, totaling some 450 individuals (all under 30 years of age) who are making things happen. The magazine started working on the project in the fall, by choosing the categories and assembling the panel of judges.
A leading source for reliable business news and financial information, Forbes is well known for its listings and rankings. On the cover of its “30 Under 30″ issue, it calls the individuals who made the lists “450 game-changers in 15 industries who are building tomorrow – today.”
Here is a look at the three Harker alumni who made the “it” lists:
Neil Mehta ‘02, Founder of Greenoaks Capital
Neil Mehta ’02 is the managing director of Greenoaks Capital Management LLC, a global principal investment firm dealing in private equity, venture capital, real estate and public market opportunities.
Prior to that, 29-year-old Mehta was a senior investment professional at Orient Property Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-based real estate investment and development firm financed by D.E. Shaw, a premier $20 billion global hedge fund and investment firm based in New York.
Forbes listed Mehta in its finance category, crediting him with managing some $600 million, investing in industries ranging from e-commerce to insurance. The magazine also noted that he “hit home runs” with early investments in a Palo Alto-based software company called Palantir and a South Korea-based e-commerce company named Coupang.
“I owe a lot to my colleagues, friends and family. We still have a long way to go at Greenoaks, though,” said Mehta, adding that he was proud and impressed to see so many Harker alumni on the list.
Surbhi Sarna ’03, Founder of nVision Medical
Surbhi Sarna ’03 was last year’s alumni speaker at Harker’s eighth annual Research Symposium, which drew more than 400 attendees. There, she shared the story of how she suffered from painful ovarian cysts in her early teens, which caused her to later become determined to create better conditions in the field of female health.
To this end, the 28-year-old founded the venture-backed nVision Medical in 2009 to develop technology to help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer. To date, her company has raised some $4.5 million from Catalyst Health Ventures, Draper Associates and Astia, a group that assists female entrepreneurs.
“It is a great honor to be chosen as one of Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30.’ I know Harker has a lot to do with my drive to be an entrepreneur, and I’m grateful for all of the teachers who inspired me while I was there,” she said of her placement in the medical category.
Ilya Sukhar ’03, Co-Founder and CEO of Parse
Ilya Sukhar ’03 made the news several months ago when Facebook acquired his company, Parse, of which he served as co-founder and CEO. Currently, Sukhar runs the Parse business at Facebook, where he also works on platform products.
“There’s a lot of people I really admire on that list, so it’s a nice honor for me to be included,” reported 28-year-old Sukhar, adding, “I got back to work pretty quickly, though.”
Sukhar, who is listed in the tech category, said he got the idea for Parse after he experienced the pains of building a mobile app. According to Forbes, he has since turned Parse into a critical service for mobile developers that now provides the back-end infrastructure for more than 180,000 apps, including those built by Ferrari, The Food Network and Sesame Street. Facebook bought Parse in April 2013 in a deal reportedly valued at $85 million.
Sukhar delivered this year’s alumni address at the Harker Research Symposium. To read more about Sukhar and his work, see http:// news.harker.org/entrepreneurial- alumni-forge-their-own-career-paths/ where he is featured in a previous HNO story.
To view the Forbes “30 Under 30” lists, see http://www.forbes.com/lists/.
Harker enjoyed another successful year at the Synopsys Championship in March, as dozens of middle and upper school students garnered awards.
Five upper school students were named Grand Prize winners, granting them spots at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Two additional students were named Grand Prize alternates.
Sriram Somasundaram, grade 11, won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Biological Sciences. He was awarded $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation. He also received a First Award in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category.
Junior Andrew Jin also won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Biological Sciences. He received $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation. He also was awarded a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a $100 second place prize from the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, and $75 from Varian Medical Systems. In addition, he received a First Award in the Bioinformatics category.
Another Grand Prize – Best of Championship winner in Biological Sciences was Steven Wang, grade 11. He received $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation, as well as a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a $100 second place prize from the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, and $75 from Varian Medical Systems. He also received a First Award in Bioinformatics.
Junior Vivek Sriram was named Grand Prize Alternate in Biological Sciences. He also received a First Award in Bioinformatics.
In Physical Sciences, Nitya Mani, grade 11, won a Grand Prize – Best of Championship, as well as a First Award in the Computers/Mathematics category. She also received a Certificate of Achievement from Mu Alpha Theta.
Senior Varun Mohan also won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Physical Sciences, as well as a First Award in Computers/Mathematics and a Certificate of Achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
Senior Vikas Bhetanabhotla was named a Grand Prize Alternate in Physical Sciences. He also won a First Award in Physics.
In all, 30 upper school students were winners in various categories.
In Botany, Joyce Huang and Neymika Jain, both grade 9, won First Awards.
In Environmental Sciences, grade 9 students Anika Jain, Anuva Mittal and Steven Cao won First Awards. Cao also received a Schonert Award, which came with $100 and a Certificate of Achievement. Tiara Bhatacharya, grade 11, also had success in Environmental Sciences, winning a Second Award.
In Biochemistry/Microbiology, First Awards went to Kshithija Mulam and Alayna Richmond, both grade 9. Anika Gupta, grade 12, received an Honorable Mention.
In Chemistry, Rohith Kuditipudi, grade 11, won a First Award and finalist letter, as well as $50 from San Jose State Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society. Efrey Noten, grade 12, won a Second Award.
Harker had a total of five winners in Computers/Mathematics. In addition to Mani and Mohan, junior Ankita Pannu received a Fourth Place Student Award from the San Francisco Bay Area professional chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, which included a certificate and $120. Rishabh Jain, grade 11, and Vineet Kosaraju, grade 10, each received an Honorable Mention from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
In Medicine/Health/Gerontology, junior Neil Movva received a First Award and $100 from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering, while freshman Venkat Sankar received a Second Award.
In Earth/Space Sciences, Manan Shah, grade 9, won a First Award and $100 from Trimble Navigation, as well as a certificate of achievement from the American Meteorological Society. In the same category, Zareen Choudhury won a Second Award.
Harker had two winners in the Engineering category. Junior Vamsi Gadiraju received a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation, a $100 First Place Award and certificate from the American Vacuum Society, a $75 Second Place Award from A Society for Materials, a certificate of achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and a $100 First Place Award from the Society of Vacuum Coaters. Meanwhile, Kailas Vodrahalli, grade 11, won Outstanding Sustainability Project in the Synopsys Championship’s I-SWEEEP contest, as well as an Honorable Mention in the Engineering Category and a certificate and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
In Bioinformatics, junior David Lin earned an Honorable Mention, as well as an iPad Mini and Certificate of Achievement from MedImmune. Vedant Thyagaraj, grade 11, won a Second Award.
Finally, in Physics, junior Leo Yu earned a Second Award.
Harker middle school students also had considerable success. First Awards in Zoology went to Praveen Batra and Michael Kwan, both grade 8, with Sumati Wadhwa, also grade 8, receiving an Honorable Mention. Sohenee Banerjee and Meghana Karinthi, both grade 8, received First Awards in Medicine/Health/Gerontology, with Jerry Chen and Jimmy Lin, both grade 8, receiving Second Awards.
Rajiv Movva, grade 8, was one of two winners in Biochemistry/Microbiology, winning a First Award. The other, eighth grader Anooshree Sengupta, won a Second Award and an Honorable Mention from the Society of Vacuum Coaters.
Harker picked up a pair of wins in Botany, with First Awards going to Anastasiya Grebin and Stephanie Swanson, both grade 8. In Environmental Sciences, eighth graders Aadi Ghildiyal and Sohini Kar received Honorable Mentions.
In Physics, Sushant Thyagaraj, grade 8, took home a Second Award. Fellow eighth grader Shaya Zarkesh won a First Award in Engineering, along with $50 and an Award for Electro-Technology from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
This story originally appeared in the spring 2014 Harker Quarterly.
By Debbie Cohen and Zach Jones
Even Democrats and Republicans agree on the crucial need for American students to become computer literate. To help meet that need, Harker, which already promotes computer science (C.S.) education in all grades, has been systematically upgrading its C.S. program at the middle school.
A new required programming class for grade 7 and an advanced programming elective were added at the start of the school year. Harker also beefed up various elements of the C.S. program for the middle school’s entire student body (grades 6-8).
The expanded C.S. program aims to provide students with a foundation to become well-rounded programmers in the future, according to Abigail Joseph, middle school computer science teacher.
“Courses at each grade level provide students with not only foundational programming concepts, but also curriculum that develop students’ critical thinking, problem-solving and design abilities,” she said.
“We are definitely seeing an upswing in interest in computer science,” reported Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs.
Since Eric Nelson became the chair of the upper school computer science department in 2010, that program has matured significantly, now offering a number of pathways to students interested in entering the field as a career.
Nelson said his desire to create a comprehensive and effective C.S. program stretches back more than two decades, when he found himself unsatisfied with the level of competency he saw in many of his co-workers. “At that time I remember swearing if I was ever, ever in a position where I could teach students computer science, I would make sure I didn’t have people like this walking into my office,” he said. He began taking copious notes. When the time finally came for him to develop a curriculum, “I already had the framework, and so that’s what we ended up with.”
Upper school students fulfill their C.S. requirements in the Digital Worlds class, which covers basic concepts, how computers work and algorithmic thinking. Those who are interesting in furthering their C.S. education can take either an introductory or advanced programming class. Depending on their choice of class, students may then enter one of two Advanced Placement classes, one for introductory students and another for those who have completed advanced programming. Both AP classes lead into more advanced topics.
The program is also designed to allow teachers freedom to move students into different areas of the program as necessary. “If a kid says they’re interested in computer science, the first thing I ask is, well what have you done?” Nelson said. If their experience is limited they are directed to either of the starting programming classes. Those students who demonstrate a certain level of experience become eligible to take a challenge exam to determine whether they can skip the programming courses entirely.
“It’s not an exam on Java or any other language,” Nelson said. Instead, it tests the student’s ability to think algorithmically and their understanding of key concepts. “How they approach a problem will tell us that.”
Although the program has not yet reached K-3 in earnest, students do begin learning key concepts related to computer science, such as algorithmic thinking, problem solving and logical reasoning, as early as kindergarten. This year, kindergartners also will begin playing a board game that introduces some programming concepts. In the coming years, actual teaching of computer science will be slowly integrated into the lower grades.
Currently, grade 2 students are learning computer science concepts by working with robots that can be programmed by placing cards in a certain order. Next year, grade 3 students will use Pro-Bots that will be programmed manually to execute more complex instructions. Grade 4 students learn to program simple games, and grade 5 students go deeper into programming while also learning binary code and searching and sorting algorithms. “We do all of that with very little use of the technology,” said Lisa Diffenderfer, K-8 computer science chair. “We learn binary sort with a deck of playing cards. We learn some searching algorithms by playing ‘Battleship’-type games.”
As with the upper school, understanding computer science on a conceptual level is important to the lower and middle school computer science programs. “We really stress the underlying principles and fundamentals of programming and not one specific language,” said Diffenderfer. “We don’t want to teach one language because we don’t know what the language of the future is going to be.
It used to be C++ and now it’s Java. Who knows what it’s going to be 10 years from now?”
In fact, C.S. curriculum is so sorely lacking in many other schools that both President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-VA, have united to support the recent launch of the “Hour of Code,” a massive publicity campaign to promote scholastic computer science education.
Due to the global effort, more than 33,000 schools in 166 countries dedicated time to computer science education as part of Code.org’s initiative, which was timed to coincide with Computer Science Education Week in December. The Hour of Code was part of Code.org’s broader campaign to encourage computer science education in more classrooms.
“The impact of the Hour of Code to change communities and propel computer science education to a new level of awareness globally is tremendous,” affirmed Joseph.
The Bureau of Labor estimates that more than 140,000 computer science jobs are added to the American economy every year, making it one of the fastest-growing occupations. Yet, according to the National Science Foundation, just 40,000 college students are graduating with computer science degrees.
“When part of a high-quality academic program, computer science classes add an element that helps all students navigate our complex, technologically driven world. It also gives our graduates an edge over those who are not taught these increasingly essential skills,” Dan Hudkins, Harker’s K-12 director of instructional technology, was quoted as saying in an article that originally appeared in the summer 2013 issue of Independent School Magazine, and also was printed in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.