Senior of the Year: Achyuta Rajaram

Jun 4

By SAM ALTMAN ‘26

Cheers ring throughout the basement of EPAC. You turn the corner and throngs of people surround senior Achyuta Rajaram’s board as Chess Club comes to a close. Some are players, but far more are his friends who have simply come for the show, eager to witness his genius. The room’s fluorescent lights cast a stark glow over the board, and he taps his fingers rhythmically on the table as calculations unfold in his mind.

Rajaram’s work in the sciences on campus is extensive, to say the least. Having been active in Chemistry, Physics, and Computing Club, participated and won several academic competitions (including earning national distinction at Regeneron STS), Rajaram is a pillar of Exeter’s STEM community. Elsewhere, he is involved in Chess Club, and is often working on separate projects of his own in places like the Design Lab.

Hailing from Hopedale, Massachusetts, Rajaram is a resident on campus in Soule Hall. “The thing I like to say is: ‘If you give me a map, I can’t point to it,’” Rajaram joked. “Then I moved to somewhere in Massachusetts that’s slightly more relevant. Before that I lived in Rhode Island, before that it was New Jersey, and I was actually born in Michigan. On campus, I live in Soule, where I love playing video games like Valorant with students in my dorm.”

“I believe I first got to know Achyuta in Computing Club. All of the coheads introduced themselves and they were all super accomplished—they’d won programming tournaments, written papers, and Achyuta was amongst them. He was an incredibly engaging speaker. You might think that people who are that smart would be too busy coding to be good speakers, but Achyuta spoke with such passion and eloquence,” upper Byran Huang said.

“I think I first met Achyuta through the AP physics and multivariable calculus classes we were in together,” senior Daria Ivanova said. “He seemed to know what was what and had cool ideas. I remember there was one time when we were talking about the moment of inertia in physics. He randomly stood up and started talking about how, if you take a boiled egg and spin it on a table, it will stand up on its own eventually. Then, we went to D-Hall together to test it, and it did indeed work.”

Around campus, Rajaram is involved with nearly every possible branch of science at the highest level. He heads Physics Club and Chemistry Club and he is constantly using his knowledge of engineering for them in addition to side-projects. Rajaram is also one of the most accomplished students in the field of AI at Exeter.

In physics club specifically, in addition to being a part of the project that won the Beamline For Schools competition in 2023 that allowed them to travel to Switzerland and test their work in an actual particle accelerator, Rajaram has also been active in the USIYPT (United States Invitational Young Physicists Tournament) competitions.

“Physics club is probably the thing I spend the most time doing,” Rajaram commented. “One of the highlights of the year is always the USIYPT tournament. Essentially, you research some weird unsolved-ish questions, you get some findings, and then you propose your solution to others and have a sort of debate about it. When the other team is questioning your results, though, the interesting thing is that they’re not forced to bring up their own research—they can just ask questions, which can sometimes make it a lot more of a constructive process.”

Rajaram continued, “For example, this year a problem I worked on was about balancing drops of water on hydrophobic surfaces and seeing how they spin when they’re surrounded by it. We were able to do actual physics, create a theoretical model of what’s going on, and test it.”

Senior Will Lu also recalled this work, “We were trying to measure how fast the water was spinning and so we acquired a camera with a really high frame, although that came at the price of camera resolution. Three days before everything had to be done, we were up all night, going through videos of water spinning, clicking frame by frame, manually counting how many times it would revolve. No matter if it’s tedious, no matter if it’s intellectually difficult, this guy can’t even conceive of allowing the difficulty to stop him.”

Rajaram has also been very involved in STEM tests, typically known as olympiads, both via Physics Club and elsewhere.

“We’ve also competed in Science Olympiad together for the past two or three years,” Huang said. “His work ethic is unbelievable. He doesn’t even need to study that much for it, because he has so much knowledge in his brain already.”

“Basically every subject has an olympiad,” Rajaram said. “Math is the most famous, but there are others. I always spent a significant amount of time on the chemistry and computer science exams, and there’s also one for physics. The top twenty for most of these exams then go to a training camp before going to represent the nation at international competition. I didn’t quite get there, but I definitely had a positive experience because there are a lot of great communities online of people working on these. I’m certainly much better at chemistry, computer science, physics, math, and more because of the hundreds of hours I’ve put into them.”

“Because he has such a deep love for the subjects he’s involved in, he’s able to be resilient,” senior Alan Bu said. “I remember in his lower year, he was working really hard to try to make something called the International Chemistry Olympiad Camp. He was grinding every day in the library and did very well, but he didn’t end up making the top twenty. College applications come quickly, and every year, you’re one year closer. So, when something doesn’t work out, you have to think to yourself: ‘Is it worth it to keep pouring time down on this? What if I end up in 12th grade with nothing at all?’ But, he picked himself up, looked around, and kept going in STEM, even branching out into other subjects. He continued to be fascinated by his work, this time in machine learning, by listening to podcasts and reading papers, and it clearly ended up paying off.”

In 2024, Rajaram won first place and $250,000 in scholarship funds for his work with AI during the Regeneron Science Talent Search competition, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious science competitions in the country.

“He’s contributing to interpretability,” Ivanova explained. “He’s doing research that tries to understand AI rather than make it more smart. He wants to figure out what’s going on in the brain of AI so we can better manage it.”

“I mentored Achyuta alongside a research scientist about his Regeneron project over the summer. It’s actually going to be part of a larger string of neural network research though, and I believe he’s going to continue that work this coming summer,” alumnus Neil Chowdhury ‘23 said.

“He’s very into science and engineering and always has been,” Chowdhury continued. “Sometimes he works a little too hard. When we were researching together, sometimes he’ll come into the working space and keep laboring late at night with laser focus on individual tasks. If he wants to apply himself to any particular task, he usually succeeds.”

Rajaram described his experience at the competition,“I remember when they called me to tell me I was a finalist in the top 40, I was in yoga or Spanish class or something. I saw I was getting a call from DC and just ignored it. Then, they tried again, and I thought: ‘Wait, they called again, maybe this is relevant.’ From there, when you go to the actual competition in DC, there are two phases. In one phase, it’s pretty standard and they just ask you basic probing questions about your project and why you made certain choices. In the other, though, each of the some 18 judges sit you down for five minutes and grill you on random science, even areas not related to your research. It’s definitely a trauma bonding experience of sorts for the finalists. Of course, there’s a large amount of random chance in that, and so I wouldn’t necessarily put myself above any of the other finalists. I think one reason I won is that my research can extend to so many fields. For example, you could even explain my AI work in terms a really good biologist or doctor could understand. Although, the random esoteric knowledge I’ve gotten from Olympiad and YouTube certainly helped me in the judging process.”

“In terms of the proposal itself, it mainly had to do with AI and computer science,” Rajaram continued. “Most machine learning research asks: ‘How can we train the best model to do X task?’ But, the area I explored was how we can step back and stop ruthlessly optimizing for the best result. In my project, titled ‘automatic discovery of visual circuits,’ I focused on that sort of interpretability, specifically in the sense of vision models. For example, say you have some AI doing general image classification, but you want to know what part specifically is responsible for detecting cats—it’s a fairly natural question to ask. It’s important because if we want to use our AI, we’d better trust it.”

Ivanova agreed, “AI can be pretty dangerous because it’s just this black box that can output ideas. But we don’t really know what’s going on inside the circuit. What if it’s having some thoughts that are not in favor of society and humanity? Whenever you have a machine that’s trying to maximize something, it can get quite serious. Hopefully Achyuta’s work which aims to understand how AI processes data is going to help us keep AI ethical.”

Beyond his competitions, Rajaram loves to work on engineering and generally scientific projects that he genuinely finds interesting.

Rajaram commented, “The senior project I’m working on has to do with banana radiation. Apparently, due to heightened potassium levels, bananas create roughly a positron every two hours. So, naturally, I thought to myself: ‘Wouldn’t it be really funny if you made random numbers using bananas?’ The hard part is actually measuring such small particles, but hopefully it will work out.”

“The banana project is funny because I believe he got the idea when we were at CERN and we saw a poster about how potassium is slightly radioactive,” Lu said.

“The purpose of the banana experiment is to attempt to generate randomness for the sake of security and encryption processes. It’s a very creative way to link particle physics and encryption,” senior Ishaan Vohra said.

“Additionally, he’s always tinkering in the Design Lab on different projects. At one point, I think he was working on building a chess board with a magnet underneath moving the pieces that can play for itself. With a computer attached, you could be playing an actual chess match against the board itself,” Vohra remarked.

“He’s also into building things,” Chowdhury agreed. “He even helped me build my computer and has plans to work on his own.”

“Achyuta and I have always been in similar spaces in the sciences. We talk a lot outside of class, in physics club, you get the picture. Recently, I’ve been trying to get more into artificial intelligence and he, as someone who has a lot of experience in machine learning, has been giving me some really helpful advice—he’s always willing to share his experience with newcomers to a certain field,” Vohra remarked.

Instructor in Science Mark Hiza, who taught him numerous times, reflected on his time with Rajaram as his student. “I’ve known Achyuta since his prep year, when he was in my 300 physics class during the winter and spring terms. That winter term was taught remotely, and even in a Zoom box, Achyuta stood out as a talented, curious, and helpful student. Since then, he’s been in my chemistry 400 class for his entire lower year, in my thermodynamics class during the winter term of his upper year, and, finally, this spring, I’m one of the advisors to his senior project.”

Hiza continued, “Achyuta has always impressed me with his enthusiasm for math and science; and for his enjoyment of working with his classmates toward a common understanding of whatever topic we were studying. He took seriously his role as a teacher for his peers—the class learned a lot from him. I admire Achyuta’s intellect and have always appreciated how he was willing to think out loud in class. He was never afraid to spitball ideas during class and see where that would take us (this was especially true for the thermodynamics course). His questions and insights created a richer experience for everyone in the class (myself included).”

“I think Achyuta is just a very hardworking person at whatever he does,” senior Lauren Kim commented. “He’s truly fascinated by all of these scientific concepts and, as a result, he remembers everything seemingly effortlessly. Especially for physics and chemistry, he really tries his best to teach everyone as much as he can. I believe he’s also had a large presence in the learning center.”

Additionally, Rajaram serves as chess cohead where he runs weekly meetings and manages trips to competitions. “Chess club is probably my most casual club. We set up a bunch of boards in EPAC basement for a couple of hours and just play games. We had a recent success at Nationals when we got 4th place in our U1600 section,” Rajaram said.

“He’s also a musician, which is something I didn’t always know. I used to have my drum lessons right after his, and it turns out he is a really talented drummer and likes to play jazz. I think it makes sense, because music and math are somewhat related,” senior Natalie Welling said.

“Most people view him as a very STEM-oriented person,” Kim said. “And of course, he’s fantastic at that. But, I think he’s also well rounded—he’s very into acting and theater, he plays the drums, and is someone who’s willing to play valorant or debate random topics he’s interested in, even if it’s outside of STEM in something like English or US history.”

Those who are close to Rajaram also admire him for his ability to be philosophically minded and take every that he does as something that can add to him as a person, rather than it simply being a game or a task crossed off.

“Achyuta has a deep perspective on what it means to live a purposeful life, what he wants to do with his life, and what he thinks others should do with theirs. I really respected his meditation which I read privately that discussed how he can use his STEM-focused activities for good in the world—not everyone thinks about it, but I think that’s something really important to keep at the forefront of your mind,” Vohra reflected.

“I really admire his confidence,” Welling said. “He once mused to me something to the effect of, ‘You have two choices: either to be sad and feel bad about yourself, or be extremely confident.’ At least in part, I think his confidence has been key to accomplishing all of the amazing things he has.”

“Another thing that stands out about his personal philosophy is his ‘why not?’ attitude,” Vohra continued. “I think it’s that he understands there’s no downside to trying a new activity, because you learn something even if you don’t succeed. I think we see that manifest in his STEM studies. Whether it be in Physics Club or Science Olympiad or for our USIYPT competition, he always looks deeply and explores different realms of solutions.”

“I want to say that he has gained an appreciation for the parts of life that are a little less materialistic,” Welling added. “He’s not driven by outcomes or hyper-focused on his academic success. When the Preservation Hall Jazz Band came to Exeter for assembly, for example, he talked to me all about how lovely he thought it was for them to feel so much passion for this one activity.”

Rajaram, however, is not free of more… unique talents and interests. As Ivanova put it,“He loves videos of kittens. Kittens are his thing. If you walked by him right now, he’d probably be watching reels with kittens on them unless he’s working on his research.”

“Another memory I have with Achyuta was going to the American Regional Math League together. It was right after the end of the school year last year, there were fifteen of us or so, and we learned at one point that there was going to be a karaoke night with prizes. Now, you have to understand that Achyuta is really into rapping. He knows tons and tons of different songs, and while we were choosing which one to do, you could tell the sheer number of lyrics that are stored in his head,” Ivanova continued.

“His music taste is absolutely crazy,” Huang agreed. “He’s into rap—low, drill rap. Honestly, I don’t even know how to describe it. He showed me his playlist and it was just like the hardest rap you’ve ever listened to.”

As Rajaram slides his queen straight into the jaws of his opponent’s pieces, his opponent begins to sweat fearfully, and you see a smile form at the corners of Rajaram’s face. Not because it’s checkmate in three, or because he’s guaranteed to take all of his opponent’s pieces—he has calculated to a certain extent, yes, but he did it for the thrill of the ride, confident that he will thrive in the chaos of the board.

In the environment of Exeter, too many of us are afraid to take risks, worried about the grade or our resumé or what people will say. In this spirit, Rajaram concluded, “You should believe in yourself, always. Even if you think it’s really unfounded, even if it’s not warranted. I like to think of my decisions as a sort of non-traditional gambling, which has helped to take things less as a personal attack. It can only be beneficial to think that way, and as I’ve gone through my Exeter experience, that fact has been very powerful for me.”

Each and every one of his friends had many words for him. “As a friend, I would describe him as a cuddly teddy bear,” Lu joked. “I also want the world to know he has a pair of hot Cheeto sweatpants that he rarely wears outside anymore. He needs to bring it back.”

“He reads a lot of papers and loves to talk about news in the scientific community. It’s always fun to have him around because he’s truly fascinated by new techniques and breakthroughs. He’s a very social person and has definitely been an asset in all of the activities we’ve been in,” n Bu said.

“I’m honestly still trying to process who he is. I hope the Exeter community can take his passion and determination and hard work as an example. It’s true—he occasionally plays Valorant all night. But he also studies all night. He’s super hard working but he never tells anybody that because I don’t think he needs to. His work speaks for itself,” Huang said.