11-year-old invents lead-detection device for water, wins ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’

It was two years ago, owing to the Flint water crisis, that 11-year-old Gitanjali Rao became concerned about lead contamination. She has since invented a quick, low-cost test to detect the presence of lead in water. For her invention, she was recently honoured with the title of ‘America's Top Young Scientist’. The crisis began in 2014 when the city’s water source was changed to the Flint River, exposing residents to high levels of lead. The seventh-grader at STEM School Highlands Ranch soon realised that Flint was not the only place to have faced this problem. Her lead-detection device won her the competition In Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and $25,000 in prize money. Gitanjali has named her device after Thethys, the Greek goddess of fresh water. Gitanjali completed her project over a period of five months. This device utilises carbon nano tubes for detection of lead. Gitanjali now wants to further work on the device and modify it to make it market ready. In future, she sees herself either as an epidemiologist or geneticist.