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This article originally appeared in the winter 2017 issue of Harker Magazine.
Compiled by Kristina Alaniz, alumni director, The Harker School
Alumni from all classes through 1997 are listed under the years they would have completed grade 8 at The Harker School, Harker Academy, Harker Day School or Palo Alto Military Academy (PAMA). For all classes after the Class of 1997, alumni are listed under the class years they would have graduated from high school, regardless of whether they completed high school studies at Harker. For unlisted classes, we invite you to email alumni@harker.org if you are interested in becoming a class agent or would like to nominate a classmate. All photos submitted by the subject unless noted.
1990
Chris Yamashita, founder of the locally famed Brown Chicken Brown Cow in Campbell, was awarded The San Jose Mercury News’ 2017 Best Burger in the Bay title.
1996
Sam Lepler, middle school graduate and current Harker upper school teacher, received the Teacher of the Year award from the California Association of School Economics Teachers (CASET). Read more on this story in our student publication, Harker Aquila: https://harkeraquila.com/38875/news/economics-teacher-samuel-lepler-receives-california-teacher-of-the-year-award-from-caset/
2002
The upper school’s inaugural graduating class celebrated its 15-year reunion in style at the Anchor Brewing Distillery in San Francisco. In attendance were Isabella Liu, Paul Picazo, Heather Browning, Vijay Nayak, Tiffany Duong, Ben Hu, Sameep Lad, Akhsar Kharebov and Joe Rosenthal , executive director of advancement.
2003
Kari [Saltzman] Snell and her husband, Jason, welcomed twins, Dextor and Maddox Snell. They join big sister Kiora.
Surbhi Sarna was presented with Harker’s 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award for her dedication and work in the use of STEM research to improve health care for women. Read more on this story at https://news.harker.org/surbhi-sarna-03-awarded-2017-outstanding-alumni-award/.
2004
Deepa Mathew and her husband, Nishant Goyal, welcomed their first child, Kian Mathew Goyal, born Aug. 22, 2017.
Vivek Saraswat was married to Neha Vyas in August at the Vintners Inn in Sonoma County. They met at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where they bonded over their mutual love of singing, and received their MBAs in 2014. They are now living in San Francisco and working at tech startups.
2005
On Nov. 11, Shikha Mittal married Jameel Khalfan, almost exactly six years after the day they met. They were introduced by Shikha’s Harker classmate Suhaas Prasad at the birthday party of yet another Harker classmate – and Shikha’s best friend – Ruchi Jhaveri. Jameel proposed to Shikha in an elaborate treasure hunt that started in San Francisco and ended in Los Angeles, atop the SLS Hotel’s rooftop pool, the venue of their six-month anniversary. The wedding occurred in Palm Springs and started with a Coachella/Burning Man-themed sangeet. Pictured standing left to right are Karun Amar, Jhaveri, Khalfan, Mittal, Arjun Naskar, Arjun’s date; on the ground are Prasad and Bharat Reddy.
After playing Cordelia in “King Lear” at The Guthrie earlier this year, Kimberley Wong is currently working at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, where she just closed a successful run of “Hamlet” in her dream role, Ophelia. She is about to open their Christmas production, “Miss Bennet: Christmas at
Pemberley.” She was also seen this fall on HBO’s “The Deuce” as a recurring character, a bartender named Suzi.
Alan Malek and Yuanyuan Pao ‘07 were married March 25 at the Cornerstone Sonoma, an event venue at the junction of Napa and Sonoma counties.
2006
Meghana Dhar was included on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Meghana is responsible for opening 700 stores for B8ta by 2018. The company launches brick and mortar stores for trendy tech products and provides them with customer engagement and interaction data.
2007
Jenny Ma and Andrew Fandrianto were married on July 7, 2017 in Oahu, Hawaii. “We’ve been best friends since middle school and would often spend most of our lunches and after-school hours playing handball.” In attendance were (all Class of 2007 unless otherwise noted) Alex Fandrianto ’08, Anthony Fandrianto ’11, Michael Ma ’14, Alex Wu, Jay Han, Michael Chaykin, Alexander Hansen and Tiffany Lin.
Jessica Dickinson Goodman has been accepted as a Fellow with the New Leaders Council for 2018, a program that trains and supports the next generation of progressive leaders. ”My application focused on my experiences working in government as a scheduler for now-U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris and staffing the chair of the Washington State Appropriations Committee during a constitutional budget crisis; my international work supporting women’s empowerment, including teaching classes to bridge the digital divide in Sierra Leone, the West Bank and Gaza; and my commitment to resisting the many ways the current administration is attacking the social fabric of our country, specifically fighting back against their initiatives targeting DACA recipients, giving succor to white supremacists and wrecking the ACA.” See our profile on Jessica on page 32.
David Linder and his wife, Dena, were married in downtown Chicago surrounded by family and friends. His passion for web analytics and e-commerce led him to a new role as product manager of Yield Optimization at Prodege LLC.
2009
Kevin Kim has had an eclectic mix of career opportunities since graduating from Cornell University. In 2016, Kevin transitioned into software engineering to work in the field of custom data analytics development and visualization. After living and working for four years in Washington, D.C., Kevin decided to chase the love of his life to New York City when she started law school at Columbia. They got engaged this past October in New York.
Chef Iso Pastry (chefiso.com), created by Justin Iso, is a website all about pastry art. It recently won Editor’s Choice for best baking and sweets out of 30,000 nominations in Saveur Magazine’s 2017 annual Blog Awards. Justin launched the website in 2015 to showcase the art and science of haute pâtisserie.
2011
Brianna Tran got engaged to Chris Miller in September on top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. The 14-mile, 4,800-foot hike took them 12 hours, but it was well worth it! They met at a rock climbing gym, have been together for more than three years, and plan to marry on Sept. 29, 2018.
2012
After completing a Fulbright teaching assistantship in Poland, Bridget Nixon is piloting a children’s choir at a new private school in Warsaw. She is very happy to be singing again, and is looking forward to coordinating the school’s Christmas production.
2013
Katherine Woodruff graduated from Pacific University in Oregon with B.S. in environmental biology, and is now attending the University of Exeter in England to receive her master’s degree in animal behavior. She is currently enjoying the English culture while learning further research skills in her field, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. following completion of the course. She is also teaching a judo class on the weekends, an activity that she has enjoyed since early childhood.
Multi-Class Meet-Ups
The first alumni basketball game in the new athletic facility took place on Nov. 25. Parents, friends and fans reunited in the stands to cheer on 35 players from the classes of 2006-17. This year’s recipient of the Alumni Basketball Championship trophy was Team Evens.
Team Odds: Coach Butch Keller, Lucas Motro ’07, Howard Lio ’11, Nirjhar Mundkur ’11, Nilesh Murali ’11, Zach Mank ’11, Gautam Krishnamurthi ’11, Nikhil Panu ’13, Kevin Cali ’13, Kevin Susai ’13, Spenser Quash ’13, Nick Nguyen ’15, Justin Yen ’15, Nathan Dalal ’15, Rohith Kuditipudi ’15, Ashin Mehta ’15, Dylan Patel ’15 and Jordan Goheen ’17.
Team Evens: Coach Alfredo Alves, Bernie Lee ’06, Charlie Fang ’08, Alan Wong ’08, Andy Fang ’10, Kevin Fu ’10, Ryan Fan ’10, Rohan Chopra ’10, Lung-Ying Yu ’10, Stephen Hughes ’12, Sean Pan ’14, Wei Wei Buchsteiner ’14, Nick Navarro ’14, John Hughes ’14, Huck Vaughan ’14, Dhanush Madabusi ’16, Raghav Jain ’16, Rohan Jiro Desikan ’16 and Evan Lohn ’16.
Glenn Reddy ’15, Adarsh Battu ’14, Haley Tran ’17 and Lucas Wang’17 video conferenced in as guest panelists in Juston Glass’ DECA class. The alumni talked about their experiences in DECA and how the networking skills they acquired here at Harker have helped them in their current lives as college students.
Nikhil Panu ’13, Sean Pan ’14, Sheridan Tobin ’15 and Haley Tran ’17 came back to Harker as guest speakers for a senior class L.I.F.E. assembly. They covered such topics as the pitfalls they encountered as they entered college, things they have learned about the college process and things they wish they had known as seniors at Harker. Read more on this story at: https://news.harker.org/seniors-learn-about-college-life-from-harker-alumni-at-assembly/.
And for more college insights from alumni, see Sophomores Speak, this issue.