GMPraveen Balakrishnan

Praveen Balakrishnan was born in Irvine, California, in 2002 and grew up in Centreville, Virginia. He started chess at five and became a U.S. national master at ten. His school years included Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. He won the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in both 2017 and 2018. In 2019 he won the North American Junior Championship, earning his first grandmaster norm. A shared first place at the U.S. Masters that year supplied his second. He shared second place at the 2021 U.S. Junior Championship. His final norm came through victory at the Jesolo festival in Italy in August 2021. FIDE approved his grandmaster title that year. He also received a Samford Fellowship in 2021. At the University of Chicago, he continued playing team chess alongside his studies. In 2023 he and Awonder Liang helped the university's B team win its second consecutive U.S. Amateur Team North title.