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Who Is Agastya Goel? Indian-Origin Teen Seen With Trump After Olympiad Win

The United States Physics Team achieved a historic sweep at the 2025 International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) in Paris, bringing home all five gold medals. The winning lineup - Agastya Goel, Allen Li, Joshua Wang, Feodor Yevtushenko, and Brian Zhang, secured the country's best performance in the competition's history. 

Days later, the young champions were honoured at the White House, where US President Donald Trump congratulated them personally.

Michael Kratsios, a senior aide to Trump, shared a photo of the team with the President on X, writing: "Today POTUS & WHOSTP47 were proud to welcome the 2025 World Champion USA Physics Team to the White House! These incredible geniuses DOMINATED at the International Physics Olympiad in July, bringing home a record FIVE gold medals, the greatest performance in team history."

Who is Agastya Goel?

Among the standout winners is 17-year-old Agastya Goel, a junior at Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California. The Indian-origin prodigy is the son of Stanford professor Ashish Goel. Already a two-time gold medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), Agastya ranked fourth globally in 2024 after scoring 438.97 out of 600, while China's Kangyang Zhou secured a perfect score. His academic brilliance has often been compared to his father, who topped India's prestigious IIT-JEE exam in 1990 before building a career in academia.

Agastya's achievements go well beyond physics. He has been a USACO (USA Computing Olympiad) finalist for three consecutive years (2022-2024), won silver at the 2023 USA Physics Olympiad, and participated in the elite Mathematical Olympiad Program. He has also contributed to PRIMES-USA and has been selected multiple times for Honour Choir. Between 2021 and 2024, he worked as a part-time researcher at Euler Circle in Palo Alto, co-authoring a mathematics paper later published in The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics.

Life outside academics

On his LinkedIn, Agastya describes himself as passionate about tennis, hiking, music, and stargazing. He plays both guitar and piano, enjoys singing, and is active in his school's choir. He also participates in the varsity tennis team, the Gunn Competitive Programming Club, and the Board Game Club. In his downtime, he listens to podcasts on science, economics, and world affairs, and enjoys playing frisbee and board games with friends.

Early interest in physics

Agastya's interest in science began during hikes and car rides with his father. Though he first leaned toward computer science, his fascination shifted during the winter of 2023, when he spent weeks immersed in Kevin Zhou's physics handouts, including study sessions in front of the Taj Mahal during a family trip to India.

A family of academics

His father, Ashish Goel, originally from Uttar Pradesh, studied computer science at IIT Kanpur before earning his PhD at Stanford. Now a professor of Management Science and Engineering, he has worked on algorithmic game theory, computational social science, and computer networks. He also played a role at Twitter in its early years, helping develop the platform's monetisation model.

H-1B visa fee debate

But what was intended as a celebration quickly ignited debate online. None of the medalists appeared to be white or of "traditional" American origin - a point seized upon by both supporters and critics of Trump's immigration stance.

One X user, Sarcastic Monk (@ThePiyush7), said, "This picture alone should be enough to explain why H1B programme is important for US." Another user, Bharat Singh (@OyeBhartsingh), wrote, "100% non white Americans, threat to American jobs, Trump should deport them."

Then there were more comments, with Deep Barot (@deepbarot) posting, "LOL! Zero 'ethnic white Americans' on the physics team. One Russian, one Indian, and the rest Chinese-all non-white, immigrants of the 3 most hated countries in this country", Zorius Veximus (@ZoriusVeximus) added, "There you go. I spot Chinese and an Indian. Yea, put more rules on H1B."

In his latest move to crack down on immigration, Trump on Friday, signed a proclamation imposing a $100,000 (over Rs 88 lakh) fee on H-1B visa applicants. The visa fee ranges from $2,000 to $5,000, depending on employer size and other costs.
 



from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/aVsjOXR
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