Dressed in a puffy, bright orange jacket, Akshay Ravoor (12) exudes an ebullient personality lighthearted enough to match the tones of his clothing. He speaks in a slightly lilting voice and expresses his thoughts clearly and concisely, occasionally adding in phrases such as “I’ll talk more about that later” or “I loved it.” This enthusiasm is clear to everyone who has met him, from friends to teachers.

“He cracks a lot of jokes, and good ones,” said close friend Kaushik Shivakumar (12). “Even during hard times, in the midst of disappointments, he always finds ways to make the situation better, and he’s generally very fun to be around.”

While Akshay has a relatable sense of humor, he also displays a studious temper. Physics and Science Research teacher Chris Spenner notes that Akshay would often give feedback to other students in the Advanced Research course in order to help them improve and simultaneously gain knowledge.

“When somebody else is giving a presentation…he’s really good at asking questions and giving feedback afterwards but especially asking questions about the content at a sophisticated level,” Spenner said. “By doing that, I think he’s acknowledging their work and how good their work is and giving them a chance to respond.”

Spenner also noted that Akshay would make connections between very different fields of science, an observation which Akshay describes as putting together pieces of a puzzle. While working at an internship at UC San Francisco over the summer in order to examine RNA sequencing in the cytoplasm of cells, he was able to hone these skills through the process of research.

“We tried a bunch of computational pipelines in order to parse the data, and we used a bunch of statistical methods which I had to do a crash course on with my mentor because I didn’t know any of that,” Akshay said. “That was really cool, and it’s one of the things that excites me about college because you get a chance to fill in all the gaps between little patches of knowledge.

While Akshay engages in intellectual awareness, he also develops bodily awareness through taekwondo and yoga, the latter of which he began as a freshman after injuries related to a growth spurt.

Though initially unenthusiastic the experiment paid off, and it now serves a purpose far beyond its ability to prevent against injury.

“Initially you still have all these thoughts floating through your head, so you kind of distance yourself from them and draw your sphere of awareness to you and forget about the cars going outside or the ticking of the clock,” Akshay said. “That gives me a different perspective on how much things matter.”

Whether in the research lab, yoga class, or taekwondo practice, Akshay strives to establish deeper connections with the activity he is involved in.

“One of the things I’ve learned to do over time is to be more actively engaged with the material, with either the teachers or students, really seeking to understand. I think the same can also be said for yoga in trying to understand my own body.”