43 Middle and Upper School Students Bring Home Awards at 2013 Synopsys Championship

It was again a successful year at the Synopsys Championship for Harker middle and upper school students. Andrew Jin, grade 10, in the bioinformatics category, and Anika Radia-Dixit, grade 12, in medicine/health/gerontology, were both awarded grand prizes and an expenses-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which takes place May 12-17 in Phoenix, Ariz. Venkat Sankar, grade 8, received a middle school special prize and a trip to the California State Fair in Los Angeles for his project in the environmental sciences category.

Harker was also named one of the top three high schools at the event, and upper school science teacher Chris Spenner was one of the top three high school teachers. Thomas Artiss, middle school science teacher, was named most promising new teacher.

A total of 26 upper school students were winners of various awards at this year’s contest. In the biochemistry/microbiology category, Sriram Somasundaram, grade 10, earned a First Award, while classmate Stanley Xie won a Second Award along with Pranav Reddy, also grade 10, who also received an Honorable Mention Certificate of Achievement from MedImmune.

Rohith Bhethanabotla, grade 11, won a First Award in chemistry, while fellow junior Mercedes Chien received a Second Award in the same category. Freshmen Rishabh Chandra and Jonathan Ma and juniors Avinash Nayak and Shreyas Parthasarathy all won Second Awards in physics.

Rishabh Jain, grade 10, won a second award in computers/mathematics as well as a First Place award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which included a certificate and programmable robot. In the same category, Cindy Liu, grade 10, earned an Honorable Mention, and juniors Brian Tuan and Andrew Wang each received Honorable Mention Student Awards and certificates from the Association for Computing Machinery.

In earth/space sciences, senior Andrew Luo received a Second Award, and junior Stephanie Chen and sophomore Matthew Huang each received Certificates of Achievement from the NASA Ames Research Center.

Neil Movva, grade 10, earned several recognitions in engineering, including a First Award, a Certificate of Achievement and $50 voucher from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, an Honorable Mention from the U.S. Army and a Special Award from Varian Medical Systems, which included a $75 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. In the same category, Ramakrishnan Menon, grade 12, received a Second Award, was named a second-place student by the American Vacuum Society and was awarded a $50 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. Michael Kling, grade 11, also received a Second Award in this category and a Certificate of Achievement and Pewter Medallion Voucher from the Yale Science and Engineering Association. Yet another winner in engineering was Alison Rugar, grade 12, who earned a Third Place Award from A Society for Materials which included a $50 prize, a subscription to Popular Science magazine and a Certificate of Achievement. Finally, Avi Agarwal, grade 11, received an Honorable Mention.

In addition to Andrew Jin’s Grand Prize, the bioinformatics category also saw Steven Wang, grade 10, earn a First Award and a first place $150 cash prize and Certificate of Achievement and an award from the University of California, San Francisco Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology.

Other upper school winners were juniors Daniel Pak and Christopher Fu, who both received Second Awards in Zoology, senior Suchita Nety, who received a First Award in medicine/health/gerontology and sophomore Nikash Shankar, also a First Award winner in medicine/health/gerontology, who also won a second place prize of $200 from Rambus, honorable mention from MedImmune and an invite to the California States Science Fair.

The middle school had 16 students winning awards this year, including grade 8 students Avi Khemani and Manan Shah, who earned First Awards, and Jonathan Liu and Justin Xie, also both grade 8, who received Honorable Mentions in biochemistry/microbiology. In engineering, eighth graders Peter Wu, David Zhu and Amrita Singh all won Second Awards, with Singh also receiving a Certificate of Achievement and lapel pin from the National Society of Professional Engineers. Sandip Nirmel, also grade 8, received a Family and Friends membership from the Tech Museum of Innovation.

Eighth graders Aditya Dhar and Arjun Subramaniam each won Second Awards in computers/mathematics and Meena Gudapati, grade 7, won a First Award in behavioral/social. In the same category, grade 8 students Joyce Huang, Meilan Steimle and Swetha Tummala all earned Second Awards.

Grade 8 student Andrew Gu’s project in the botany category earned him a First Award, and Evani Radiya-Dixit, grade 8, was named a middle school Top Finalist for her medicine/health/gerontology project.

Congratulations to all the winners, and good luck next year!