Pleasant Ridge Middle School
Pleasant Ridge Middle School
Sharad Sharma, Coach
Coach Sharad Sharma is the coach of the Pleasant Ridge Science Bowl Team. He is an information technology professional, but teaching is his passion. This is his fourth team which qualified for nationals in the last five years of Science Bowl coaching. In his free time, Coach Sharma enjoys playing various sports, such as cricket, soccer as well as running track. He also enjoys watching tennis. His favorite player is Novak Djokovic. He also enjoys spending time with his children outdoors.
Addhyan Saxena
Addhyan is a seventh-grader from Pleasant Ridge Middle School in Overland Park, Kansas.His favorite subjects are physics, math, and chemistry. Outside of school, he participates in competitive swimming, table tennis, Origami, Rubik's cube and builds paper and electric planes. At school he participated in MATHCOUNTS and is also competing at Science Olympiad nationals in May 2022. He wants to pursue medicine as a career and become a doctor one day.
Pranav Poovancheri
Pranav Poovancheri is an eighth-grade student from Pleasant Ridge Middle School whose interests are in science, mathematics, reading, piano and swimming. He participated in various science and math clubs and placed top sixth in Kansas state MATHCOUNTS and won many Science Olympiad competitions. He enjoys building circuits, machines, robots and legos. Reading books, playing piano, video games, and chess are also his favorite hobbies. He would like to explore more in space science, engineering and physics in the future.
Anvita Rayabarapu
Anvita Rayabarapu is an eighth-grader at Pleasant Ridge Middle School. Her favorite subjects at school include science and math, specifically algebra and geometry, and she specializes in biology and energy for Science Bowl. Outside of school, she participates in various STEM activities including Science Olympiad, MATHCOUNTS, robotics camps, and more. In her spare time, she enjoys sketching, baking, and reading. Some of her hobbies are swimming, playing the piano and violin, and dancing. A few interesting facts about Anvita are that her favorite vacation spot is the beach, she loves digital art, and she believes pineapple is destined to be on pizza (no offense to all the haters). She thanks Science Bowl for giving her the opportunity to discover her passions in STEM.
Vikram Vallurupalli
Vikram Vallurupalli is an enthusiastic sixth-grader who actively participates in all of the math and science clubs at his middle school. As an ardent fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, he loves spending his Sunday afternoons screaming at the television and analyzing statistics to predict game outcomes. At home, he is notoriously known for using up any amount of tape and empty cardboard boxes in a matter of hours to construct random contraptions. In his free time, Vikram loves playing Monopoly with his family, experimenting in the kitchen with his older sister, reading books, watching movies (with food, of course), coding, and beating his own Rubik’s cube timing.
Neil Joshi
Neil Joshi is a seventh-grader at Pleasant Ridge Middle School in Kansas. He loves to play the violin, enjoys reading, and makes complex origami creations. He qualified for the MATHCOUNTS state level competition. In addition, he is part of his school team which is going to the National Science Olympiad in 2022. It was during the Science Olympiad that Neil found his eureka moment for physics. Neil is a Taekwondo black belt, however it hurt for him to do a plank.
