Who is Dev Shah, 14-year-old Indian-origin teen who won $50,000 prize in Spelling Bee with 'psammophile'?

Florida, United States

Dev Shah, a 14-year-old student from Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee in the United States on Thursday, June 1, 2023. The Indian-origin teenager correctly spelt the word "psammophile" and won a $50,000 cash prize at the 95th National Bee. Charlotte Walsh, also 14, from Arlington, Virginia, finished second, having incorrectly spelt "daviely" as "daevilick." Walsh won a cash prize of $25,000.

Dev, while collecting the prize with his family, said, "It's surreal... my legs are still shaking." His mother told that she is very proud of him. 

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Who is Dev Shah?

Dev is an eighth-grade student at Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School. His hobbies include reading, playing tennis, cello, and doing math.

This was Dev's third attempt in the competition. In 2019, he finished 51st and 76th in 2021.

In finals, he correctly spelt aegagrus, rommack, tolsester, and schistorrhachis. In the word meaning round, he picked the right meaning of chiromancy, identifying it as someone who tells fortunes using lines on the palm of the hand.

The New York Times cited Dev asking what's a psammophile, "Psammo meaning sand, Greek?" He continued, "Phile, meaning love, Greek?"

After instantly identifying the roots of his words, he asked for all the information just to be safe, and while smiling slightly in a way that sighed, he said that he was pretty sure that he had it.

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Along with the $50,000 cash prize from EW Scripps CO, the bee's sponsor, Dev, other than monetary prizes, also got Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. It is the official dictionary of the competition. 

11 million people participated in the Spell Bee competition.

The organisers said a total of 11 million people entered the spelling competitions, but only 11 made it to the finals. The national spelling bee started in 1925.

The preliminary rounds were held on Tuesday, while the quarterfinals and semifinals took place on Wednesday, May 31.

Last year, Harini Logan, 14, from San Antonio, Texas, correctly spelt 22 words during a 90-second spell-off to bag the first prize. 

The spell bee competition got cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the US’ largest and longest-running educational programme, Spell Bee returned in 2021 but with a few changes. 

(with inputs from agencies)

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