Berkshire students Darran Shen ’20 and Chris Branch ’20 were recognized this week by The New York Times.

The pair teamed up to create the podcast, “A Tale of Two Lions,” which tells the story of Stephen and Stitt, two bronze lion statues that have become iconic landmarks at HSBC Bank in London. The podcast was submitted to the newspaper’s Second Annual Student Podcast Contest, and earned Shen and Branch a runner-up award.

“This podcast was actually based off my Advanced Humanities Research project from this past year," said Shen. "The research paper discussed the influence of Feng-shui on architecture in Hong Kong, which is fascinating."

Shen researched and wrote the podcast, while Branch narrated it. Both are students in Berkshire’s Advanced Humanities Research program led by Dr. Sandy Perot.

"It feels really empowering to be recognized among such outstanding entries," Shen added. "I can also now say that my work has been featured by The New York Times, which is pretty cool."

Nearly 900 high school students from around the world submitted podcasts to the contest, which required teenagers to create a podcast on any topic they wanted, five minutes or less. Shen and Branch’s podcast was among just 39 selected for an award.

You can listen to the podcast below: