Iolani School
Iolani School
Brennan Hee, Coach
Coach Brennan Hee is the impostor. While he may look like a competitor, he is simply using his extreme camouflage skills to make himself mistaken for a student at every tournament. This year, for nationals he would like to clarify that he is indeed just a young coach, not a competitor. Coach Hee attended 'Iolani High School in Hawai'i,, the Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Since graduating with a money man degree, he has become a master of spreadsheet working in 'Iolani’s Institutional Advancement Office, a coach for Division B Science Olympiad, and for the past year, Science Bowl Coach. In his free time, he likes to avoid his chronic back pain and enjoys being a connoisseur of coupons. Coach Hee would like to clarify that all bios were not written by the competitors themselves, but by their loving teammates (including this one)!
Tyler Matsuzaki
Tyler Matsuzaki is soon to be living his final days…as an 'Iolani Student. In the 6.9% chance you do not catch him on a busy STEM practice/competition day (as he tries to fill up his schedule with as many STEM Olympiads as possible), try looking in the forest for he might be exploring the wilderness as an Eagle Scout or in the very back of the school orchestra where he might be playing the tuba. Tyler plans to continue to hone his biology and research skills as well as his state champion level smash bros skills at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall.
Jaron Kawamura
Jaron Kawamura is a senior at ‘Iolani School attending the University of Southern California in the fall. Besides being co-president of the Surfrider Aloha Aina Club, he also serves as the talented and handsome assistant concertmaster for Iolani’s Orchestra and the comedic relief co-captain in Science Olympiad. Although he is the self-proclaimed steward of the Earth for his team, Jaron often gets more points bumping sheep with Justin than in actual Science Bowl rounds. Having been afflicted with crippling senioritis, he gets premature arthritis by playing word hunt with everyone he meets while avoiding mass extinction of his grades by a thinner margin than the atmosphere on Mount Everest. When he is not crying over his word hunt losses, Jaron can be found with one of his twelve female companions. A rabid J. Cole enthusiast and hater of shirt pockets, Jaron is cooler than an ice sheet but hotter than a mid-ocean ridge. Combined with his winning personality, it’s hard not to love J. Kawamura.
Allison Eto
Allison Eto is a junior who has a particular affinity for math and physics. She was born on the West Coast, tossed in a van, and carted across the country to North Carolina, where she spent all of her elementary school years. She was then, once again, tossed in a van and carted across the country back to California, then yote on a plane to Hawaii. Her experiences in STEM started way back in middle school when she participated in MATHCOUNTS, which has since expanded to the USA Physics Olympiad , USA National Chemistry Olympiad , and American Invitational Mathematics Examination . While not studying, she can be seen walking around, blowing into a big metal tube, singing a song about sulfuric acid and bus drivers, or developing her love-hate relationship with schoolwork. In her free time, she likes to learn about the different ways to put oddly shaped pieces of cloth on her body and dip her Etoes in the waters of creative writing.
Justin Lu
Justin Lu is a current sophomore and a dedicated scholar of the environmental sciences. He was tricked into becoming the principal violist in the orchestra and competes on the Science Olympiad and Math Team. In his free time, he enjoys sweating over math team packets, maining Colt in his brawls, and double-faulting when it really counts. Justin also enjoys playing tennis against his sixty five year-old math teacher (and losing). Sometimes you can find him eating strange purple fruits, then suddenly proclaiming that he can’t swim and shouting “????? ????????” (Gomu Gomu no Jet Pistol) while trying to punch the local birds from twenty feet away. Poor Justin has difficulty trying to get his overripe teammates to study for the Science Olympiad. One day, Justin hopes to become a beautiful butterfly in the medical field or a magician who creates money by moving numbers around at Jane Street. Yay Justin!
Ryan Eto
Although it is often easy to forget, Ryan Eto is actually a freshman at ‘Iolani School. When not jumping on math tossups or confusing his teammates with obscure knowledge about 2012 energy questions, he likes to play that grocery-bag game where you carry all 751252342 items in a single trip. In one bag is about fifteen Science Olympiad events, in another is cross country, in a third is math team, then band, then track, and in a sixth bag he has somehow crammed the defining features of every plane in existence. It helps that some activities overlap—for example, cross country is immeasurably useful for chasing birds during SciOly ornithology practice, and blasting Careless Whisper has been *instrumental* in developing his ear for airplane sounds. Despite these convenient intersections, however, Ryan’s grocery-bag-carrying prowess can truly be attributed to just one thing: the photos of Coach Brennan taped to the ceiling above his desk.
