2015-2016 fox chapel area school district state of the schools
• Senior Konrad Urban and junior Suvir Mirchandani won first place in the 2016 Taiwan International Science Fair in the Computer Science and Information Engineering category for their project“ Automated Illustration of Text to Improve Semantic Comprehension.” The pair developed a software system that converts natural language input into illustrations in order to improve communication with individuals who have language communication disorders. Nearly 500 students from 22 countries competed at the fair. Konrad and Suvir qualified for the Taiwan International Science Fair by placing at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May 2015.
• Dorseyville Middle School seventh grader Amulya Garimella was named a third place national winner in the 2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge. With a goal of preventing distractions, she invented a distraction-monitoring prototype that alerts the user of distraction by measuring EEG brainwaves. Amulya received $ 1,000 and a trip to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where she had the opportunity to take classes and interact with students from all over the world.
• The Fox Chapel Area School District was named a Common Sense Digital Citizenship Certified School District, one of only 24 school districts from across the nation and one of five in Pennsylvania to receive the designation. As a certified district, each individual school in the Fox Chapel Area has demonstrated a commitment to a whole-community approach in preparing students to use the immense power of digital media to explore, create, connect, and learn. It also recognizes schools that limit the perils that exist in the online realm, such as plagiarism, loss of privacy, and cyberbullying.
• Sophomore Cassidy Carson was selected to receive a Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship and is spending her junior year of high school studying abroad in Germany.
• Junior Emma Paulini was selected as a national winner by scoring in the 91 st percentile on the Level IV 2016 National German Exam for High School Students and was awarded a summer study trip to Germany. She and sophomore Carl-Emil Johansen each won gold awards on the exam.
• Middle school eighth grader Rajeev Godse scored in the top one percent of the country on the American Mathematics Contest 8 exam.
• High school junior Ellen Pil advanced to the semifinal round in Student Congress at the National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Championship Tournament. This accomplishment placed Ellen in the top 60 students in the nation. She was one of eight students from the high school to qualify and compete in the national competition that was held in Sacramento, California.
• High school junior Jacob Klein was named one of 50 national winners in The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America Essay Contest.
• High school seniors Ryan Humbert won first place and Conor Gaffney won second place in the 2016 national Founding Freedoms Essay Contest in the 12 th grade division. Additionally, eighth grader Jessica Klein received second place in the eighth grade division.
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