Academy Achievers
The Advocate would like to periodically recognize students in the 10-12 division for their extraordinary achievements on campus or outside the Academy community.
In this, the fifth edition, we want to recognize two juniors who are doing amazing things within the Academy community but also across the New Mexico community. The Advocate salutes the following:
Harrison Schiek ‘26: Those who know Harrison would most certainly say that he is always busy. Always engaged in numerous projects and clubs, it is difficult to choose what exactly to showcase. Two of his most noteworthy accomplishments include: placing second in the 2024 New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge and beginning the community awareness project Roots of Hope.
The New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge is a year-long project where the participants (middle and high school students) engage in a problem of their choice and build code to be run on supercomputers in offering a solution to the chosen problem. Harrison, who has always been interested in code ever since doing Code.org and CodeCombat as a child, aimed to help mitigate risks of excessive rainfall and flooding through studying the Albuquerque area and building a model that evaluated areas most prone to excessive erosion or water accumulation. This project specifically focused on larger infrastructure, such as arroyos, acequias, and water diversion channels. Although this might seem daunting to others, Harrison found it enjoyable. “I think it’s really fun to just investigate something and build something with code and figure a problem like that out.” In the end, his hard work paid off as he won second place at the awards ceremony held at the Los Alamos National Laboratories.
As a member of DECA, Harrison decided to focus on creating a community awareness project with the intention to address the issues of hunger, malnutrition, and obesity in the Greater Albuquerque Area, usually caused from a lack of access to healthy and affordable food options. However, for Harrison, this quickly grew beyond a DECA project as he focused on collecting gardening materials to distribute to community gardens in need of materials. He also began to partner with EFFECTS NM (another Albuquerque Academy club) to help educate children how to grow their own produce. Through this, Harrison reflected on the value of growing your own food, “almost every single gardener that I’ve talked to along this journey has told me when a kid grows a radish for the first time they’re excited to try that radish. And if you just give a radish to a kid, they say ‘no, I won’t eat this.’”
As Harrison looks into the future he hopes to once again participate in the Supercomputing Challenge, focusing on modeling materials in 3D printing environments. He hopes also to continue growing Roots of Hope and continue to thrive in epee fencing, a sport that he achieved his A rating in just last year (a feat achieved by only about 16% of the fencers in America).
Naomi Brundage ‘26: One of the best parts of recognizing these great Academy Achievers is discovering the remarkable opportunities. More importantly, it’s fascinating to see the wide array of Academy students who achieve great things that cater precisely to their interests. One such achiever is Naomi Brundage, a junior who hopes to achieve her Girl Scout Gold Award through a project dedicated to increasing both racial and socio-economical diversity in the sport she loves: tennis!
To begin, the Girl Scout Gold Award is an uber-competitive reward attained by only about 5% of all girl scouts in the nation that recognizes commitment to community through a sustainable project addressing an important issue and offering a solution to help solve this problem. Naomi decided to honor the legacy of tennis legend, and the first African American to win a Grand Slam title, Arthur Ashe. But focusing solely on his tennis achievements would overlook his activism, which involved helping acquire civil rights and racial equality, playing an integral role in ending apartheid South Africa, and as a proponent of raising AIDS and HIV awareness is perhaps just as influential even to this day.
Naomi aims to honor his legacy and celebrate Black History Month with her tennis clinic. She hopes this event, Arthur Ashe Day, will become an annual tradition. This event offers an opportunity for Naomi to “make the sport [tennis] more inclusive and accessible, particularly for students of color and those from underserved communities.” Inspired by her own experience as an African American member of the Chargers’ tennis team, Naomi always felt welcomed and encouraged to thrive in tennis, a sport she began at Academy through the Think Summer Program at only seven years old. She plans to kick-off this hopefully long-lasting tradition on February 8th, bringing together members of the Academy community and leaders from the United States Tennis Association and Jack and Jill of America with underserved and minority students in the Albuquerque area.
Naomi’s passion for increasing diversity on the tennis court shined through in her interview, ending it with a statement that perfectly encapsulates her dedication towards this issue: “My goal is for them [the participants of the clinic] to feel welcomed and inspired, knowing that they belong on the tennis court, no matter their background.”
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If you know of a student who deserves to be recognized as an Academy Achiever, please contact Austin Curtis ‘25.
