Two Students Earn Grand Prizes at Synopsys Science Fair

Harker ‘s middle and upper schools were once again big winners at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship, pulling in more than 40 awards. Two upper school students, Alex Han, Gr. 12 and Revanth Kosaraju, Gr. 10, walked away with grand prizes for “Best of Championship” in the Biological Sciences category. Both were awarded a trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May.

Also winning in the Biological Sciences category was Josephine Chen, Gr. 11, who received a First Award and a $100 prize for the best technical paper from the Dr. Paul X Callahan Technical Paper Awards.

Kosaraju also won a First Award for Individual Project in the Behavioral/Social category, as did Aditi Joshi (Honorable Mention, Individual Project) and Max Lan (First Award, Individual Project), both Gr. 11.

Han also took home First Awards for Individual Project and Technical Paper in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category, where junior Jason David Young earned an Honorable Mention for Individual Project.

Harker US winners in the Medicine/Health/Gerontology category were Jeanette Chin (Second Award, Technical Paper), Supraja Swamy (Second Award, Technical Paper) and Isaac Madan (Honorable Mentions for Individual Project and Technical Paper), all Gr. 11 and Pranav Sharma, Gr. 9 (Honorable Mention, Individual Project).

A trio of Harker students performed well in the Engineering category, with senior Andrea Lincoln winning Second Awards for Individual Project and Technical Paper, junior Kiran Vodrahalli earning awards from Yale Science and Engineering Association, United States Army and more and sophomore Ashley King walking away with a first place bronze medallion award from the United States Army.

Upper school award winners in other categories were senior Tiffany Chien in Chemistry (First Award, Individual Project), senior Andrew Zhou earning a First Award in the Technical Paper category, senior Kevin Zhang in Earth/Space Sciences (Honorable Mention, Inividual Project) and Paulomi Bhattacharya, Gr. 9, in Environmental Science (First Award, Individual Project).

Harker had nearly 30 award winners at the middle school level. Winners in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category were Christopher Fu (Second Award, Team Project), Brendon Yu (Second Award Team Project), Mercedes Chien (Labcoat Award for Lab Bench Finesse) and Vikram Sundar (First Award, Individual Project), all Gr. 8.

In Environmental Sciences, awards were won by eighth graders Saachi Jain (Second Award, Team Project), Kristine Lin (Second Award, Team Project) and Aditya Batra (Honorable Mention, Individual Project).

Winners in Zoology were Divya Kalidindi (Second Award, Team Project), Namita Ravi (Second Award, Team Project), Pooja Chopra (Honorable Mention, Team Project) and Maneesha Panja (Honorable Mention, Team Project), all Gr. 8, while Anika Ayyar won a Second Award for Individual Project in Botany.

Harker’s biggest category was Physics, with a total of 13 winners:  seventh graders Archana Podury (IEEE Award from Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), Corey Gonzales (First Award, Team Project), Madhu Nori (First Award, Team Project), Apoorva Rangan (First Award, Team Project), Allen Huang (Honorable Mention, Individual Project), Hemant Kunda (Second Award, Team Project), Neha Sunil (Second Award, Team Project), Sahana Rangarajan (First Award, Team Project), Vivek Sriram (First Award, Team Project), Rahul Balikrishnan (Second Award, Team Project) and Avinash Nayak (First Award, Team Project) and eighth graders Raymond Xu (First Award, Team Project) and Vikas Bhetanabotla (First Award, Individual Project).

Middle school award winners in the Engineering category were Neil Movva, Gr. 7 (Second Award, Individual Project) and Brian Tuan, Gr. 8 (Honorable Mention from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering).

Finally, Jennifer Dai, Gr. 8, won a First Award in the Chemistry category.

In addition to the dozens of student awards, upper school science teacher Kate Schafer was named one of two Outstanding High School Teachers. The upper school received a $100 prize from the Wireless Communication Alliance and $1,000 from the Whitney Education Foundation for having the best biological science project. The middle school received an Outstanding School Award from the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association.

To see the full list of student winners, including all awards won and project titles, visit the middle school and upper school winners pages on the Synopsys Championship website, or download the lists of the middle school winners and upper school winners in PDF format.

Congratulations to all of Harker’s award winners at this year’s Synopsys Science and Technology Championship!