Winged Post wednesday, january 28, 2015
THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 16, NO. 4
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AMC SCHEDULE tara parimi
Aquila copy editor The American Mathematics Competition (AMC) will be held on Feb. 3 at the Upper School. Students participating in the test should arrive on campus at 7:30 a.m., with period one beginning at 9:45 a.m. 110 students are registered for the two exams, the AMC 10 and 12. While the AMC 10 is restricted to only ninth and tenth grades, the AMC 12 is open to all students, grades nine through 12. Each exam is one hour and 15 minutes long and contains 25 questions. Shaya Zarkesh (9), who qualified to USAMO in the eighth grade, is hoping to repeat his success this year. “I hope to do well and get a perfect or near perfect score on the test,” Shaya said. If their AMC scores are in the top 2.5 percent (AMC 10) and the top five percent (AMC 12), students will qualify to take the AIME. A high score on the AIME results in an invitation to the U.S Mathematics Olympiad (USAMO). Last year, 39 Upper School students and nine Middle School students scored high enough on the AMC to qualify for the AIME. A high score on the AIME guarantees an invitation to the (USAMO). 11 students went on to qualify for the USAMO.
Three seniors named Intel Science Talent Search finalists, most in school history 9 of 40 finalists from Bay Area, record 15 Harker semifinalists kshithija mulam & vijay bharadwaj
setting a standard but also proving and passion and hard work does create possibility,” science department chair Anita Chetty said. “To know that a smaller school such as ours can fare better than larger, magnet schools that draw from larger populations is an important achievement.” The Intel Science Talent Search (STS) is a program of the Society for Science and the Public, an organization for public interest in scientific research
and education. STS originated in 1942 and is currently one of the most highly regarded competition for high-school photo editor & reporter seniors. Since 1998, it was sponsored by Intel and continues to grow as a Three Harker seniors were selectcompetition. ed as finalists in the annual 2015 Intel “You must find a question that Science Talent Search on Jan. 21, and you are so curious in answering that fifteen seniors were named semifinalyou will spend hours and hours searchists on Jan. 7. This year, Harker not only ing for answers. You must craft your has the largest number of finalists and own research question and find what semifinalists in Harker history, but also it is that you are interested in,” Chetty more than any other high school in the said. “Do not look for somecountry. one else to tell you what your The following students project ought to be and do were named semifinalists: not try to find a project that Shikhar Dixit, Andrew Jin, represents a ‘hot topic’. Find Rohith Kuditipudi, David something and then take it Lin, Rachel Wu, Cindy Liu, as far as you can.” Neil Movva, Pranav Reddy, This year, Intel has triAnokhi Saklecha, Nikash pled the top award money Shankar, Sriram Somasundaand added new categories. ram, Kailas Vodrahalli, Steven Each student receives $1000 Wang, Leo Yu, and Andrew for becoming a semifinalist, Zhang. Andrew Jin, Steven and $1000 from Intel goes Wang, and Rohith Kuditipu- SEMIFINALISTS (BACK ROW) Seniors Steven Wang, to the school. 40 students di went on to become Intel Nikash Shankar, Neil Movva, Shikhar Dixit, Pranav Reddy, Sriram Somasunduram, Andrew Jin. (FRONT ROW) are selected as finalists for finalists. Seniors Kailas Vodrahalli, Cindy Liu, Andrew Zhang, STS out of the 300 semi“Our seniors have paved Leo Yu, David Lin, and Anokhi Saklecha. 15 seniors finalists. Nine of those 40 the way for our younger stu- were named Intel STS semifinalists on Jan. 7, the most students are from Bay Area dent researchers by not only in school history. Not pictured: Rohith Kuditipudi and
high schools. Several of the seniors conducted their research through summer research internships at colleges such as Stanford and NYU. Many were also aided in their research by Harker staff, who provided them with certain guidelines while writing papers and kept them on track with due dates for the projects. “Mr. Pistacchi was really helpful,” Rachel said. “When he looked over my paper, he pointed out a few big picture things that people in my lab didn’t really realize because they were so familiar with my project, so it was good to have an outside perspective.” Harker’s Science Department continues to encourage students to pursue the sciences, especially with the increased success of students in recent years. “Our whole student body is talented. If you can finish a Harker class, you can do science research,” Rohith said. “If you can get excited about it, you can do it well. And it’s really just as simple as that.”
Rachel Wu.
inside the projects
A NEW DIMENSION Steven Wang (12) took cellular models into 3D by placing minced mouse tissue in a collagen framework. The new models allowed for more reliable representations of tumor cells, especially their interactions with neighboring healthy tissue.
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NETWORKING Rohith Kuditipudi (12) draws a basic visual representation of the networks he worked with on his project. He studied factors that cause liver disease to progress to liver cancer,
SHAKESPEARE CONTEST meilan steimle opinion editor
Harker will be participating for the first time in the English Speaking Union’s National Shakespeare competition during long lunch in the auditorium Feb. 18. Students in grades nine to twelve can compete, preparing an at maximum twenty-line monologue from the Shakespeare Folger’s Library. The Harker winner will go on to compete at regionals in San Francisco on March 7, for which he or she will also prepare a sonnet. Regional qualifiers will then advance to Nationals in New York in April. English teacher Charles Shuttleworth was inspired to start the competition at Harker after moving from his previous school, Dwight High School, where participation was mandatory. “I think Harker students with their competitive spirit are naturals for this contest,” he said. “I think we have a chance of doing very well.” Students interested in the contest can attend the informational meeting on Wednesday, January 28 at 11:15 in Main room 9 for further information.
RESEARCH CLUB (LEFT) Research Club officers Steven Wang (12) and Andrew Jin (12) lead a club meeting in the research classroom. All three finalists were in the same fourth period Advanced Research class in first semester.
NATURAL SELECTION Andrew Jin (12) wanted to “understand why our bodies are the way they are,” developing a predictive method to find areas of recent evolution in the human genome.
Q&A with finalists apoorva rangan & kacey fang
editor in chief & managing editor Winged Post: How do you guys feel 12 hours after hearing the news? AJ: It’s still a really big surprise. It’s such an honor to be named a finalist and go on to the next competition in March. RK: I definitely didn’t expect it, so it was a very pleasant surprise. It’s always a surprise for stuff like this. SW: I wasn’t expecting it at all, and I just came out of dance when I got the phone call, so it really wasn’t on my mind at all. It’s an honor to be among all the other finalists who are incredibly brilliant and I think it will be a great experience. WP: Can you guys talk about
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how you’ve been involved in research at Harker or if there’s something about research at Harker that you think was involved in that number? AJ: For me, Harker has just been a really supportive environment for me to pursue my interests and explore. I just started out doing research in seventh grade, and I really enjoyed it. Ever since then I’ve been doing research at Harker. The science classes prepare you really well and provide you with a solid foundation for research in such complex research areas, and the teachers are just really great. I know for me Mr. Pistacchi and Ms. Chetty and Mr. Spenner did so much to help me through reading my paper and providing feedback on my presentations. RK: Harker’s science department and math department are great about getting students excited about science.
They put a lot of work into things like the Symposium, and they provide a lot of resources for you to succeed, and there’s definitely a big emphasis on it. A large part of why Harker is so successful is because of the effort they’ve put into getting the student body these types of things. SW: I would just describe the research program as just very supportive. One example is in our research class, Mr. Spenner had time to review my paper two times which really helped to get it into shape to submit to competitions, and we also did a lot of feedback in class, so it’s just a very supportive environment that really helps sharpen your research skills. WP: You were all in the same Advanced Research class, right? AJ: Yeah. RK: Though that’s more of a correlation than causation, I think. SW (laughing): Actually, Spenner
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definitely liked us best. WP: Are you planning to continue your research in the future? RK: What I’m working on this semester is writing a more complete paper that will hopefully get published soon. I’m definitely excited about it. AJ: For me I’m definitely going to continue expanding my methodology and work for the rest of this school year. If I end up going to school on the East Coast, I’ll definitely be really interested in working in the same lab, the Broad Institute. This summer, it was my first time doing research in this area, but I found it was really fascinating, like evolutionary genetics. SW: I’m probably going to continue just going deeper into some of my analysis that I already did over the summer, and I’m starting to transition back into lab just after the college app frenzy. Continued on A8
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