In the summer, he’s surfing. In the fall, he’s mountain biking. In the winter, he’s snowboarding and also starts playing soccer, which continues into the spring. For Krish Kapadia (12), sports and the great outdoors aren’t just a way to fulfill a P.E. requirement or get exercise: they’re a focus and a passion.

“A lot of my free time, especially during the summer or on weekends, will be spent outside, in nature,” Krish said.

Krish has been on the varsity soccer team since freshman year. One of the things he loves most about sports is the chance to spend quality time with his friends outside of the classroom.

“I go [snowboarding] with Jacob Kim (12) and Josh Broweleit (12) a lot, and we’ve kind of pushed each other to get better. [Josh] is always taking us on new adventures and new paths that I would’ve never thought of taking, and that kind of brought me out of my comfort zone,” Krish said. “I used to be a very timid and ‘stick to the run’ type of person, he’s kind of shown me you can go off the path and it’s going to be fine and more fun.”

Jacob, who has been one of Krish’s close friends since third grade, fondly remembers that sports was one of the things that drew them together starting in their elementary school years.

“We got a group of friends, and we were always playing soccer together,” Jacob said. “[Krish] would always be one of the people to bring people together; I think he was one of the core pieces of our group. Plus he was really great at soccer, so everyone would always be like ‘Krish, be on my team!’”

Now, in the busy world of high school, whether it’s playing sports or even spending time with his dog Kipper, Krish believes in spending a significant time away from his books or video games to just enjoy the world.

“Have something that you can go outside and experience. I don’t think enough people realize the opportunities they have here in California. The nature we have here — it’s top-class, and it’s probably not going to get any better anywhere else you go,” Krish said.

Guided by a mentality of maintaining balance in what he does, Krish focuses on his academic life equally compared to his other interests. One specific passion of his has been science research, which he has been actively involved in since his freshman year, to be “at the forefront of what’s happening.”

Krish started his research endeavours in eighth grade, when he teamed up with his friend Anjay Saklecha (12) to work on a project looking at biomarkers found in saliva. Krish and Anjay — or the “Saliva Brothers,” as they would come to be known — developed and worked on their research all the way until eleventh grade, when they won a grand prize at the Synopsys Championship research competition and earned a trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

One of the research duo’s signature characteristics was being able to jump in and finish each other’s sentences and thoughts, as Anjay noted.

“Krish had bronchitis when we were at a competition once, and he couldn’t really talk or every time he talked he would have to cough a lot, so every time he talked I would have to pick up where he left off,” Anjay said. “It was cool how that kind of grew into something: any time someone would leave something, the other partner would pick up. It was kind of magical.”

In the summer after eleventh grade, Krish decided to try out another research topic in bioinformatics, working on evaluating and improving on a stroke treatment method with a mentor at Stanford.

“When people have a stroke, there’s a blockage in a vessel in the brain, and [so my mentor] sends a catheter up from the groin and removes the block. We’re looking at factors that could slow down this process, and we want to see how we could make it faster eventually,” Krish said. “That’s really been eye-opening — such critical problems are solved everyday, and you kind of don’t know about it until it appears on the news. It’s cool to be just a little contributing part to solving those problems.”

Gene Wang (12), who has known Krish since fourth grade, noted that he applies this ethic of working hard to improve to whatever he does — even something like the battle royale video game Fortnite.

“If you don’t know him, he can seem like a quiet, reserved guy, but a lot of his friends know him as somebody who’s goofy but also self-driven, no matter what it is,” Gene said. “If it’s a video game — we’ll all be playing video games together, and Krish will be the one guy who is going extra hard. He really wants to succeed, and it’s apparent in everything that he does, from video games to schoolwork to soccer.”

While some might find the duality of Krish’s personality and interests incongruous, with sports and schoolwork, with video games and research, it’s pretty simple for Krish: he follows the path towards balance.

“[In] a recipe, you might put salt in a cake, but it doesn’t have to taste like salt, but it’s still necessary. Just like that, you can do outdoor activities but still be research-oriented: … [it] doesn’t mean I have to do only these sports or something,” Krish said. “For me, it’s always been about maintaining a balance.”