A New California Record: Seven Intel Semifinalists

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Jan. 24, 2011
[Update] Semifinalists in Northern California have been written about by a number of news organizations, including in an extensive story by the San Jose Mercury News, a story at indiawest.com, a Chinese-language article at uschinapress.com and coverage of Cupertino students from number of schools in the Cupertino Courier. Intel has posted their recap, too!

Jan. 12, 2011
Harker set a new California record for Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists on Jan. 12, with seven students being named at a special morning assembly.

The students – Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young, all grade 12 – were each awarded a $1,000 prize and have a chance to travel to Washington, D.C., in March for the final competition. The first place winner will receive a $100,000 grand prize.

 

Projects ranged from researching optical coatings for telescope lenses to  comparisons of distant galaxies to  those more proximate. Each student partnered with university-level mentors to perform the research for his or her project. Most students also had a Harker mentor to help the students write and finalize the project. Bhatnagar worked with Nicole Giuliani, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. Her Harker mentor was Savitha Sastry, upper school biology teacher. Dr. Sophie Kusy, postdoctoral research fellow, and Joel Dudley, bioinformatics specialist, both from Stanford, worked together with Josephine Chen, whose Harker mentor was Anita Chetty, science department chair.

Benjamin Chen was mentored by Dr. Raja Guhathakurta, professor at UC Santa Cruz’s department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Dr. Evan Kirby, a postdoctoral scholar at CalTech. Chris Spenner, upper school physics teacher, acted as his Harker mentor. Mahajan completed his project with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Santa Cruz and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher.

Parthasarathy was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz and mother of Harker alumna Holly Faber MS ’89, and Dr. Kamson Lai, postdoctoral scholar at UCSC’s department of astrophysics. Lick Observatory’s David Hilyard, optician, Brian Dupraw, optician, and Dr. Andrew Philips, astronomy researcher, acted as Tu’s mentors. Her Harker mentor was Dr. Mark Brada, upper school physics teacher. Jason Young completed his project with mentorship from Dr. Wei Wang, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and UC San Diego and was mentored at Harker by Dr. Matthew Harley, upper school biology teacher. Finalists will be announced in two weeks.

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