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Honors
webbtodayHONORS
THE WEBB SCHOOLS
Webb craftsman Mario Rodriguez was named the 2021 recipient of the Joann Robinson Staff Distinguished Service Award on October 8, 2021 in recognition of his dedicated service to The Webb Schools.
Rodriguez joined Webb in 1988 – just weeks before the schools were rocked by a windstorm, fire and evacuation. His performance during those crises led to his first commendation.
“Your performance both during the windstorm, fire and evacuation was excellent,” said Janet Peddy, Webb’s director of finance, planning and operations. “Your calmness and diligence set a standard for students and faculty alike. And so it has been for the past 33 years. In a variety of roles, Mario has diligently and calmly been taking care of the Webb community.”
Over the 33 years, Rodriguez has shifted jobs from groundskeeper to mechanic, welder and now craftsman.
“Mario is multi-skilled and lends his talents wherever needed,” Peddy said. “You can always count on him to be there, day or night, whatever the crisis.”
Vivian Webb Student Named Science Talent Search Scholar
Vivian Webb student Fiona Jiang ’22 has been named a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar 2022, among just 300 students from 185 high schools across the U.S. recognized for their brilliant entries in the nation’s oldest science competition.
The prestigious competition, staged by the Society for Science and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, counts Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur Grant winners among its alumni. More than 1,800 students enter, 300 are named scholars and 40 are finalists.
Jiang’s project was titled “Characterizing Decades of Technological Advances with Graph Neural Networks: An Innovation Network Perspective.” In it, she analyzes 7 million patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office from 1976 to 2020 to detect patterns in innovation.
She built an algorithm to examine the patterns, finding clusters of innovation among specific disciplines and related fields, a type of “innovation network” previously described in peer-reviewed research on economics.
“Using this computational effort, we proved this spillover effect occurred,” she said.
What’s more, her work suggests the patterns can be used as a predictive tool to see a pathway of future discoveries, Jiang said.
Jiang said she has been intrigued by innovation since participating in a summer program focused on launching startups before her junior year.
“I want to understand how innovation happens,” she said. “Is it something new that comes out of nowhere or is it something you can quantify?”
In crafting her project, Jiang drew on her experiences in Webb’s computer science class as well as Webb’s partnership with Harvey Mudd College faculty in computer science.
The partnership allows Webb students to take an entry-level computer science class at the college. Jiang took that course her junior year and has since progressed to more advanced instruction at the college.
At Webb, Jiang is a boarding student, a dorm prefect, a member of the junior varsity girls tennis team and president of the Filmmaking Club.
She has been accepted on early decision to the University of Pennsylvania and plans to continue her work there as part of the Rajendra and Neera Singh Program in Networked and Social Systems Engineering, the world’s first program to integrate disciplines to design and analyze complex networks, from the internet to commerce, social media to power grids.
“We are immensely proud of Fiona, and we know this is just one of many honors to come,” Head of Schools Taylor B. Stockdale said. “Fiona’s work in the talent search – and indeed, her work at Webb in general – is emblematic of the kind of unbounded thinking Webb seeks to inspire in our students.”
Read more about Webb’s computer science partnership on page 20.
webbtodayHONORS
THE WEBB SCHOOLS
Students Selected for California Honor Bands
Four Webb students were chosen to perform in regional honors bands in 2022.
Annie Huang ’24, Garry Zhang ’24 and Izzy Kim ’24 have been chosen for the 2022 California Association of Independent Schools honor band, orchestra and choir ensembles.
Hanbo Xu ’25 was chosen to perform with the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association’s High School Band. Huang plays percussion, Zhang and Xu the clarinet and Kim the violin.
Participation in the CAIS program is open to students in grades eight through 12 who receive a recommendation from their music teacher. In 2020, more than 250 students from 17 schools across Southern California took part in this event.
Webb has participated in the program for nine years. The ensembles traditionally perform at the annual Southern Section CAIS Honors Music Festival.
The band and orchestra association draws from more than 1,000 schools across Southern California. Xu previously performed twice as principal clarinet in the organization’s middle school honor band. The group performed in April at Santa Monica High School.
Seniors Win National Merit Scholarships
The National Merit Scholarship Corp. has recognized two students in the Class of 2022 for their outstanding performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test taken in fall 2020.
Josephine Burdekin and Caroline Metz learned in March 2022 that they were named National Merit Scholars, receiving $2,500 each in scholarships from the NMSC. The competition includes 1.5 million students who enter by taking the PSAT. In spring 2021, NMSC selected about 50,000 top performers. Of those, about 34,000 were honored in fall 2021 as Commended Students and about 16,000 as Semifinalists.
In February 2022, NMSC named just over 15,000 Finalists, of whom about 7,500 are chosen between March and midJune as National Merit Scholars. They receive scholarships from NMSC, corporations and colleges.
webbtodayHONORS
THE WEBB SCHOOLS
Webb Canyon Chronicle Receives Prestigious Gold Crown Award
Webb’s student publication, the Webb Canyon Chronicle, has been named a recipient of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s prestigious Gold Crown Award in recognition of its overall excellence.
The award is the international organization’s highest honor for student media. The review examined every element of Webb’s digital publication in 2020-21, from editorials to graphics, articles to images, podcasts to video.
“We worked really, really hard for this award, and it feels great to get it,” WCC Public Editor Bianca Arteaga ’22 said.
Arteaga said WCC editors reviewed feedback from previous submissions, including calls for more editorials and increased news coverage. Student editors intensified training of the staff and revamped all elements of the digital publication.
In 2021-22, the Chronicle covered issues ranging from COVID-19 to Webb’s Unbounded Days program, from school debates to diversity conferences. Editorials addressed such issues as school shootings, ethnic studies and the SAT, among many other topics. The site included videos and a podcast.
Webb’s journalism program is led by teachers Dr. Mark Dzula and Maureen O’Brien. More than 30 students are engaged in creating each issue, which they work on as part of an afternoon activity as well as through academic courses. In addition to Arteaga, the publication’s staff is led by Editorin-Chief Cathy Wang ’22, Editor-in-Chief Sunny Yu ’22 and Chief Copy Editor Leann Shu ’22.
The press association presented the Gold Crown Award at its 98th annual Scholastic Convention in March.
Read the Webb Canyon Chronicle.
