11-year-old girl wins $25,000 science prize over water poison testing device

For creating a device she believes can be faster and cheaper in detecting lead in drinking water, 11-year-old Gitanjali Rao, a seventh grader from Colorado, has been awarded the title of “America’s top young scientist” which came with a $25,000 prize.

According to Rao, her invention was inspired by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins.

I plan to use most of it in developing my device further so that it can be commercially available soon, she said

Rao who attends the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, was also awarded a 3-month mentorship with Kathleen Shafer, a research specialist who develops new plastics technologies, after she won with her invention idea submitted to the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, an annual youth science and engineering competition for middle school students in the US, inaugurated in 2008.

Gitanjali’s concept was at a very early stage at the beginning of our mentorship. She had thought of this idea earlier this year, only a few weeks before the submission deadline, Shafer said.