In late February, 17 Harker students were named semifinalists in the contest to see who will represent the United States as part of the 2013 U.S. Physics Olympic Team.

The students are: Andrew Luo, grade 12, Stephanie Chen, Varun Mohan, Kevin Zhu, Rahul Sridhar, Vikram Sundar, Christopher Fu and Alexander Pei, all grade 11, Leo Yu, Patrick Lin, Matthew Huang and Nitya Mani, all grade 10 and Jessica Zhu, Michael J. Zhao, Jonathan Q. Ma, Lawrence Li and Rishabh Chandra, grade 9.

Each student will take the semifinal exam for a shot at being named one of the 20 students nationwide who will travel to the U.S. Physics Team Training Camp at the University of Maryland – College Park. After nine days of studying, taking exams and solving practice problems, the a team of five (plus one alternate) will be selected to represent the U.S. at the 2013 International Physics Olympiad in Copenhagen, which takes place July 7-15. The process for selecting the U.S. Physics Team is organized by the American Association of Physics Teachers.

In 2011 Harker had a total of 10 semifinalists, and in 2010 Andrew Zhou ’10 was selected as a member of the team. Anand Natarajan ’09 was chosen a member of the team in 2009.