Harker is Only School in Nation With Two Intel Finalists

Jan. 28, 2011
[Update] For video coverage of the Intel awards and interviews of students and others, see the Mountain View and Cupertino patch.com stories and videos, along with this Milpitas patch.com column, and check out the KTVU Channel 2 broadcast from the 6 p.m. news. Print articles include those by the San Jose Mercury News and the Cupertino Courier.

Jan. 26, 2011
Intel representatives returned  to Harker today to announce that Nikhil Parthasarathy and Rohan Mahajan, both grade 12, were named finalists in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. They will travel to Washington, D.C., from March 10-15 to compete as two of the 40 finalists selected from around the country.

The announcement, made at a special lunchtime assembly, was accompanied by the news that Harker is the only school in the country with more than one finalist. Notably, California this year finally surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of finalists, with a total of 11 students. Harker had a record seven semifinalists in the contest, this year.

Parthasarathy’s project used recently gathered data to study the structures of distant galaxies and find out how similar or different they were to galaxies in the local universe. He was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Dr. Kamson Lai, a postdoctoral scholar at the U.C. Santa Cruz department of astrophysics.

Mahajan, whose project involved developing a hydrogen-producing solar cell as a source of renewable clean energy, worked with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at U.C. Santa Cruz, and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher and, incidentally, Parthasarathy’s proud mother.

Today’s announcement followed on the heels of one two weeks ago, when a record seven Harker students were named semifinalists in the competition.

Both students will receive a cash prize of $5,000 upon their arrival in Washington, D.C., and will compete for the top prize of $100,000, as well as meet Nobel laureates and members of congress.