Meet Agastya Goel, the Indian-origin Physics wizard seen with Trump after Olympiad win

The United States Physics Team has scripted history at the 2025 International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) in Paris, sweeping all five gold medals for the first time ever.

Among the young champions is Indian-origin boy Agastya Goel, who, along with teammates Allen Li, Joshua Wang, Feodor Yevtushenko, and Brian Zhang, delivered the best performance in the country’s history.

Competing under the theme “Physics Beyond Frontiers”, the American team outshone participants from 85 countries to secure an unprecedented clean sweep.

Days later, the gold medallists were honoured at the White House, where President Donald Trump congratulated them personally.

Today @POTUS & @WHOSTP47 were proud to welcome the 2025 World Champion USA Physics Team to the @WhiteHouse!

These incredible geniuses DOMINATED at the International Physics Olympiad in July, bringing home a record FIVE gold medals — the greatest performance in team history. 🇺🇸💪 pic.twitter.com/ZmsNRHcz95

— Director Michael Kratsios (@mkratsios47) September 22, 2025

Sharing a photo of the team with the President, senior aide Michael Kratsios wrote on X: “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.”

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Who is Agastya Goel?

Agastya Goel, a 17-year-old junior at Henry M Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, is making waves as one of the brightest young minds in science.

The Indian-origin student is no stranger to global competitions: he is already a two-time gold medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). In 2024, he ranked fourth in the world with a score of 438.97 out of 600, while China’s Kangyang Zhou secured a perfect score.

Brilliance runs in the family. His father, Ashish Goel, was one of India’s top scorers in the prestigious IIT-JEE exam of 1990 before moving into academia. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, Ashish studied computer science at IIT Kanpur and later earned his PhD from Stanford University.

Today, he is a professor of Management Science and Engineering, with influential work in algorithmic game theory, computational social science, and computer networks. He also played a key role at Twitter (now X) during its early years, helping shape the company’s monetisation model.

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Agastya’s love for science began at home, nurtured through hikes and long car rides with his father. Initially drawn to computer science, his curiosity shifted in the winter of 2023 when he immersed himself in Kevin Zhou’s physics handouts. The turning point came during a family trip to India, where he even studied physics in front of the Taj Mahal.

But Agastya isn’t all academics. He describes himself as passionate about tennis, hiking, music, and stargazing. He plays both guitar and piano, enjoys singing, and is part of his school’s choir, according to his LinkedIn.

At school, he’s also a member of the varsity tennis team, the Gunn Competitive Programming Club, and the Board Game Club. In his free time, he listens to podcasts on science, economics, and world affairs, while also enjoying frisbee and board games with friends.

His list of achievements keeps growing. While physics is now his main interest, Agastya has also been a finalist in the USA Computing Olympiad (USACO) for three consecutive years (2022–2024). He won silver at the 2023 USA Physics Olympiad, participated in the elite Mathematical Olympiad Program, contributed to PRIMES-USA, and has been selected several times for Honour Choir.

Between 2021 and 2024, he even worked as a part-time researcher at Euler Circle in Palo Alto, co-authoring a mathematics paper that was later published in The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics.

Agastya’s accomplishments have not only brought recognition to himself but also added shine to the US Physics Team, which celebrated a record-breaking performance at the IPhO this year.

With input from agencies