America's Top Young Scientist to Attend Conference

In many ways, Deepika Kurup is not your average high school sophomore. Not many girls her age have a black belt in karate. And not many girls her age have been so passionate about solving the global water crisis. Deepika is both of these things as well as being an outstanding science and math student at Nashua High School South in Nashua New Hampshire.

Deepika Kurup is a bright, passionate sophomore student at Nashua (NH) High School South.

In 2012, Deepika was chosen as the winner of the Discover Education 3M Top Young Scientist Challenge. Her award-winning project was to develop a practical approach to harness solar energy for water purification, an approach which she plans to deploy in places around the world that are affected by water pollution. Her passion stems in part from her exposure to unsafe drinking water at an early age in her native India. A video that demonstrates her project can be seen here.

Deepika showcases her project at the White House earlier this year.

In addition to being invited to attend and present a poster at the Third OU International WaTER Conference, Deepika has been recognized by national and international media and received accolades and invitations from multi-national companies and universities. She was runner-up (along with an Oklahoman, Leah Huling) for the 2013 U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize. A press release for this prize can be seen here. She challenges herself academically with several AP classes and scored a perfect 800 in SAT Math before the age of 13! She is a member of the Julian C. Stanley Study of Exceptional Talents and has received first place at the 2013 New Hampshire Science and Engineering Exposition in the Environmental Science Division. In her free time, she practices martial arts, gives talks to schools encouraging students to pursue math and sicence, and works to increase awareness of the global water crisis. 

We welcome Deepika to this year's Conference, a gathering place where she can rub shoulders with many other people who share her passion for clean water.