On April 22, junior Nicholas Wei was awarded the 2022 California Science & Engineering Fair Project of the Year, which is given to the top high school researcher each year among thousands of science fair participants. With a prize of $5,000, this is the top honor from the CSEF. His research project, “Investigating Epigenetic Modifications in Chromosome Structure in Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Mechanisms for Heart Disease Treatment,” was sponsored by upper school biology teacher Matthew Harley.

Nicholas also received the Grand Prize, Best of Championship in Biological Sciences at the Synopsys Championship and was named an Intel Science and Engineering Fair finalist.

“I’ve been at Harker since kindergarten, and I can truly say that it is the Harker community and learning environment such as the Harker Research Symposium that has helped define who I am now,” Wei said, “a scholar greatly interested in pursuing both the life sciences and classical studies.”