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21 AUGUST 2026

HARRY X-RAYS THE GALAXY Samford local Harry Van Der Ark, whom we previously featured for his TEDx event at Hillbrook Anglican High School, has completed his next major milestone. While finishing year 12, Harry undertook the complex and rather daunting USA college application process. This involved having to sit the infamous SAT exams, complete many essays, secure multiple references and the expectation of numerous activities and awards. Trying to do all this whilst studying madly for the ATAR tested Harry’s resolve to study in the United States. The same week as the ATAR results came out, Harry was very relieved to learn all his effort wasn’t wasted and he was accepted to study Physics at Ivy League institution, Columbia University in New York. Columbia was founded in 1754 and is one of the top research universities in the world, with over 100 Nobel laureates. Columbia has a long history having produced 4 American presidents including Barack Obama, 10 Supreme Court Justices, 34 Foreign Heads of State and 125 Pulitzer Price recipients. The year Harry applied, Columbia had the second lowest acceptance rate of any university in the USA of only 3.7%, with only Harvard having a lower acceptance rate. Harry had long followed his hero Professor Brian Green and was thrilled to be in one of his classes. Harry’s interest has always been physics.

Reading physics books from a young age, his ambition was to do astrophysics research. Dreams can come true and in his sophomore year he was invited to join the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory under Professor Chuck Haley, where he has been doing high-energy astrophysics research using the Chandra X-ray telescope, and will continue to do so for the remainder of his degree. This also led to a four-month project at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, where he has led a project collaboration of several universities in North America, Japan and Europe. Last May Harry finally graduated in a ceremony with his parents in attendance to

cheer him on. It was a wonderful celebration with a lot of tradition and with scenes just like in the movies. He did lose his cap after throwing it vigorously into the air as the tradition requires. After a brief holiday, Harry was thrilled to be offered a position at Columbia University as a researcher, continuing his work in highenergy physics. He is currently authoring a paper using X-ray data to better understand the center of our galaxy. Harry’s very happy to be doing at least another year in Manhattan, but he still calls Samford home. His favorite gift package from home is gingerbread men from the famous Samford Patisserie.


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