In 2009, Dr. R Harsha Rao and Dr. Kanchan H Rao established the Rao Family Student Excellence Award to honor a Falk Laboratory School graduate who excels in both academics and the arts. In contrast to the longstanding Sunstein Award, which recognizes depth of perception and creative thinking skills, Kanchan says they wished to honor someone who was not only successful in core subjects but also artistically expressive. 

Harsha adds that the award tells students, “It’s not just getting good grades that matters. You also have to become a better person.” For the Raos, it’s clear that the creativity inherent in the visual and performing arts is a vital element of a student’s holistic development.  As Kanchan says, “Life is full of stresses, and you can always fall back on [the arts] to have this other part of your brain stimulated and relieve your stress.” 

Another reason for implementing the award was to pay back and pay it forward. The Raos say their daughters, Divya and Anjali, flourished at Falk and that their endowment is a way to express their thanks. “Pay back means we are grateful,” Harsha explains, “and pay forward means we are hopeful.” 

The Raos arrived in the United States in the 1980s along with Divya, who was four years old, and just $250 in their pockets before Harsha started residency training. Kanchan became a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine shortly thereafter, but they hadn't yet settled on a school for Divya. 

Upon a colleague’s recommendation, they scheduled a tour at Falk and enrolled in the tuition remission program available to full-time Pitt employees, like Kanchan, whose children attend Falk. Harsha, who joined her on the faculty four years later, says they were “fortunate to be recipients of that [benefit]” and cites it as one of the many reasons they wish to give back today. 

Throughout elementary and middle school, Divya excelled at Falk, taking a particular interest in music and performing arts. In seventh grade, she received Falk’s Sunstein Award, and when she graduated the following year, Anjali started kindergarten. Like her sister, Anjali excelled at Falk, participating in school musicals and performances and receiving the Sunstein Award during her seventh-grade year. 

“They were both there for the duration of elementary and middle school,” Harsha says, “so each of them spent nine years at Falk, with no overlap. When our younger daughter graduated, the principal at that time said, ‘You’re the longest-tenured family at Falk that I have known.’” 

Divya and Anjali both learned to play piano at the CMU School of Music under Professor Hanna Li. Even though their lessons took place outside of school, Kanchan says their daughters’ musicality was enhanced by the Falk experience. 

“Music was an integral part of their formative years,” she reflects. “Both continued their piano in high school, and were winners in the World Piano Competition, which awarded them the chance to play at Carnegie Music Hall in New York. [Anjali], who trained with the Pittsburgh Children’s Festival Chorus, continues to find the time in her busy life as a cardiologist to sing in the choir.” 

After graduating from Falk, Divya and Anjali each went to Allderdice High School and attended Ivy League schools. As Harsha puts it, “Falk broke the ground, Allderdice laid the framework, and their Ivy League education built on that foundation to launch them into their respective careers.” Today, Divya is the Associate Director for Shiftworks Community + Public Arts in Pittsburgh, and Anjali is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. 

Harsha and Kanchan have accepted Falk’s invitation to attend the Class of 2025 graduation ceremony at Rodef Shalom Congregation in June, where they will present the Rao Family Student Excellence Award to this year’s recipient. Although they look forward to being among the Falk community again, their presence at the ceremony will be a first due to their wish that the award be only about Falk and the students they are helping, not them. 

Later this summer, they will receive a thank-you letter from their awardee, a tradition that has been in place since 2009. Harsha says they wait anxiously for these notes to arrive and are always touched by the messages inside. “When we read each letter, we know it wasn’t written by the parents—and that’s the good part. Because you can tell from the way a child expresses joy and gratitude, which is unique, and that makes it all the more gratifying.”