St John's Lutheran School
St John's Lutheran School
Rabi Sahoo, Coach
Coach Rabi Sahoo, a computer engineer by profession loves math. He founded St. John’s MATHCOUNTS program and coaches the team in his free time. He also started the St. John’s Science Bowl program and has been coaching the students for the last four years. He loves reading, writing and spending time with his family. He also loves playing chess and table tennis.
Christopher Tang:
Christopher Tang is an eighth-grader whose favorite subjects are computer programming and math. He was captain of the number 1 VEX IQ robotics team in Louisiana for two years in a row. His team qualified for the VEX IQ Worlds in 2019 and 2020. He has won numerous awards in VEX, including the Excellence Award, Robot Skill Champion, and the Encore Design award. He also ranked in the top three several times in the International Scratch Coding Competition. He has started and has been teaching an introductory coding class for kids. In his free time, he enjoys reading, piano, swimming, and chess. He eventually hopes to pursue a career in engineering, computer science and related areas.
Tanvi Thallapalle:
Tanvi Thallapalle is an eighth-grader at St. John’s Lutheran School in Bakersfield, California. Her favorite subjects are chemistry and world history. She has won the Kern County Science Fair, Knowledge Bowl, Oral Language and ranked in the top ten in Kern County for MATHCOUNTS. She volunteers at her local library and enjoys reading books to kids. In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis, reading historical fiction books, traveling to different places, and annoying her younger eight year old brother. She is planning to pursue a degree in biomedical sciences and be involved in the community.
Manrav Mahal:
Manrav Mahal is a fourteen year old who has been attending St. John’s Lutheran for nearly nine years. His favorite subjects are geology, astronomy, and world history. He has participated in the Kern County Science Fair and ranked top ten for the Kern County MATHCOUNTS. As an eighth- grader, Manrav is taking algebra II, and is planning on taking math analysis in his freshman year of high school. Manrav is interested in philosophical discussions involving psychology and cosmology, and discussions about ideology. He enjoys making a variety of things that may prove to have useful applications. For example, Manrav created a circuit that distinguishes ripe apples from unripe apples. He also likes to listen to music, draw, play basketball, and spend time with his friends. Manrav aspires to become an astrophysicist, and desires to work with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Ishmeet Singh:
Ishmeet is an eighth-grader whose favorite subjects are life sciences , math and language arts. He actively participated in Science Bowl for the past three years and is passionate about pursuing biology as an area of interest in high school and college. Intrigued by the quest to read and discover science , he has performed many interesting research projects on glucose sensors and promoted healthy eating habits in the wake of the pandemic of obesity, receiving an award in the Kern County Science Fair . He aspires to conduct higher level research going forward, and advance his knowledge further to achieve “gold standard “ merit in Science Olympiad, and perform well in Science Bowl . With tremendous ambition, hopes, enthusiasm , zeal, and optimism he hopes to make a breakthrough contribution towards the goal of curing cancer. Ishmeet’s hobbies include golfing, basketball, watching comedy shows and traveling with family .
Tanya Srivastava
Tanya Srivastava is a seventh-grader whose favorite subjects are astronomy and literature. In her free time, she loves to read, listen to music, travel, annoy her sisters, or humble the little boys in her grade. While making it to nationals for Science Bowl is cool and everything, Tanya secretly only came for the soft serve ice cream. She is hoping to pursue a degree that includes changing the world into a better place- one with more soft serve ice cream, of course.
