Obama lauds PIO student during ‘Astronomy Night’

US President Barack Obama has lauded a budding Indian-American astronomy buff who has the distinction of being the first person to be a Global Finalist in Google Science Fair twice.

15-year-old Pranav Sivakumar, who attended White House Astronomy Night organized by Obama on Monday, was described during the the event by the US president as having an “adventurous spirit”.

“When Pranav Sivakumar was six years old, he found an encyclopedia about famous scientists lying around the house.

At least he thinks it was lying around there. Actually, his parents probably were setting it out hoping he was going to run into it,” Obama said. “And he’s been fascinated with outer space ever since.

For years, every Saturday morning, his parents drove him an hour to an astrophysics lab for ‘Ask-A-Scientist’ class. And before long, he teamed up with researchers he met there to study the ‘gravitational lensing of quasars’. That is not what I was thinking about at his age,” the US President said.

“Pranav was a global finalist in the Google Science Fair -- not once, but twice. So you know he’s going to do some important things. Give him a big round of applause,” Obama said.

An eighth grader at the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois, Pranav is one of 20 teens from across the world to be named a finalist in Google’s online science and technology 

competition.