Six Harker seniors — Dominque Dabija, Daniel Kim, Elena Madan, Anand Natarajan, Vikram Nathan, and Denzil Sikka — have been named semifinalists in Intel’s Science Talent Search. This represents the highest number of semifinalists a single California school has produced since the contest began.

The students each received $1,000 for this milestone, and are now eligible to win the $100,000 grand prize.

There were only 25 semifinalists in California, out of 300 nationwide. Over 1,600 students submitted entries. Harker winners’ research covered a wide array of subjects, from “Computational Methods for Identifying Functionally Important Residues Involved in Allosteric Communication Pathways” (Dabija’s) to “Novel Quantitative Models of Reaction Kinetics” (Nathan’s). In 2006, Harker’s Yi Sun (’06) went on to the nationals, taking second place and winning $75,000.

San Jose Mercury News article – 1/14/09, Dana Hull: 16 Bay Area students named as semifinalists in Intel Science Talent Search