Omar Munshi, '15

Omar had the chance to spend a month in Germany with his grandmother, who has worked in a lab there every summer for twenty years. During that month, Omar worked in the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Rostock, where he pulled together the lab’s data involving stabilizing agents in pharmaceutical compounds and co-authored a paper outlining the research findings. “Synthesis and antiproliferative activity of N-glycosyl-3,3-diaryloxindoles” was submitted to the Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry on March 25, 2014 and accepted for publication on May 2, 2014. The German scholars appreciated having someone with a grasp of the English language who was able to write well, a skill Omar attributes to all of the writing he’s done at ESA.

A National Merit Scholar, Omar will attend Columbia University in New York, where he plans to study some combination of economics, history and biology. He’s not sure where that will lead him. “I’d like to stay in school as long as possible and enjoy it,” he says.

Of course, Omar’s ESA experience was about more than academics. In addition to golf, he served on the Honor and Student Councils, and was STUCO Treasurer in 2014-2015. He was also one of eight seniors in the new Peer Leadership program started by Dean of Students Lori Bush. Trained in team building, group facilitation, problem-solving, decision making, and communication skills, the seniors were responsible for helping the freshmen successfully transition into the upper school academically and socially, while also helping them to establish personal and class goals.

“I really think the freshmen benefit from the interaction with the seniors,” says Omar. “The out-of-class relationship is where the strength of the program is. They ask the seniors questions they wouldn’t normally ask a teacher. As it grows, it will be a really good program for ESA.” Thanks to the example set by Omar and the other peer leaders, we're confident it will be.