Gabriel Trigo

Gabriel began to discover his interest in STEM during his final couple years in middle school, when his then Physics teacher encouraged him to begin attending after school classes on the subject and introduced him to scientific olympiads in the areas of physics and math.

The experience of participating in National competitions and meeting students from all over Brazil who shared the love for Science motivated Gabriel to look beyond the bubble of his small city in the countryside of Brazil, so going into high school, he decided he wanted to study at Colégio ETAPA, the best high school in his region, and one of the best in his country. However, due to the high cost of the school, Gabriel would only be able to attend if he earned a scholarship, so he studied a lot for the scholarship exam held by the school for incoming high school students, and succeeded in doing so.

At Colégio ETAPA, Gabriel had many opportunities that furthered his interest and dedication to studying Science, such as participating in academic research and attending undergraduate level classes in physics and calculus.

During his time at high school, Gabriel was selected to represent Brazil three theoretical International Olympiads: the 14th International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO 2017) in the Netherlands; the 2nd European Physics Olympiad (EuPhO 2018) in Moscow; and the 50th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO 2019) in Israel. Gabriel also integrated the Brazilian team at the 31st International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT 2018) in Beijing, an experimental physics competition in which groups must elaborate original solutions to investigate several open-ended physics problems and phenomena. One of the solutions Gabriel worked on was later published as an article in the IYPT Magazine.

These experiences were extremely meaningful to Gabriel much beyond the academic aspect, exposing him to several different cultures, and allowing him to meet people from all over the world, leading him to have a great appreciation for the humanities and for the value of having different perspectives. He hopes that through Columbia’s core curriculum and interdisciplinary, he can become not only a capable engineer, but also one who has the foresight to think about how the technology he develops may impact our society.

Gabriel also loves to teach physics and math to young students, and does so at a few places. In his middle school, he volunteers as an experimental physics teacher, bringing cool experiments to middle school students to foster their interest in science. At his current high school, he is hired as a physics professor, teaching advanced physics classes to high school students for five days a week. Furthermore, Gabriel runs a project at a local public school, focused on helping middle school students get scholarships at private high schools by training them for the Brazilian Math Olympiad. In his free time, Gabriel loves to play videogames and to watch animated movies with his friends.

At Columbia, Gabriel hopes to further develop his interest in physics and engineering, possibly majoring in electrical engineering or applied physics. Gabriel hopes to one day engage with the development of cutting-edge technologies capable of having deep impacts in our society, such as quantum computing.