A ’93 alumnus of the middle school, Christina Yan returns to the school as the new Director of Alumni Relations.

With the new Singh Aquatics Center, Davis Field, and an ultra modern Nichols Hall, the Saratoga Campus is a completely different place than it was two years ago. Imagine the surprise of an alumnus returning after a 16-year time frame.

Back in 1993, the Saratoga Campus was only a middle school, and Yan became part of the first official graduating class of the school; that was the year when the school’s name changed officially from the “Academy” to the “School.”

“There was this huge uproar in eighth grade year when we found out we would actually be graduating from The Harker School,” Yan said.

Before her homecoming to the Bay Area, Yan worked in a public policy agency in New York called Citizen’s Committee for Children.

“I worked both with high school students and with adult volunteers to help them advocate for their communities,” Yan said. Although there were great models and associations there to help people, if there was not enough funding, the programs struggled.

Yan returned home, assuming the alumni director position.

“Education was always really important to me both within my own family and through my own career,” Yan said. “The [alumni] program is really growing, [and] I’m really excited to help build [it].”

Yan became involved in public policy and communications largely due to her interest in human interaction.

“My passion at its core is to talk to people, to find out what they are about, what are they interested in, what’s their history, where do they want to go, and helping them connect to the resources that they need to get where they’re going,” she said.

Originally, Yan was in the electrical engineering department at Columbia University. Her father, who was an aerospace engineer, sparked her interest in the field. However, after starting work with a start-up company in Sunnyvale, she had a stark realization. It was “really lonely; that kind of work, because it’s a lot of design work¾you’re by yourself, you’re doing simulations, and at a desk, sometimes in the dark to save your eyes, … I just knew then that I wanted more human interaction,” Yan said.

Yan ultimately left Columbia and went to Hunter College in New York. Finding great professors there who helped guide her, she stayed and joined the sociology department.

Graduating with fond memories, Yan returns to find that “the thing that remains the same is a sense of community, a sense of excellence. Everyone always, in the Harker community, whether you’re a student or a teacher or whatever, everybody wants to do their best, everyone is looking to grow, and be well-rounded and just be a constructive positive part of the community, and to support each other and to nurture each other.”