America's Top Young Scientist Welcomed Home at Fairgrounds

Deepika Kurup felt right at home inside the gymnasium at her alma mater, Fairgrounds Middle School on Friday.

Although in a way it was "so last year" for the Nashua High School South freshman – who noted everything looked a little smaller than it once did – last year was a particularly good one for Deepika.

She earned the honor of being named the 2012 Discovery Education 3M America's Top Young Scientist Award.

We talked with her briefly before her presentation before about 300 Fairgrounds students March 22, currently interested in the sciences. Deepika she said she is looking forward to one day becoming a neuroscientist, to really understand how the brain works.

But she's also looking forward to continuing her work on the project that won her the top science prize, a solar-powered water jug that changes dirty water into purified drinking water.

We've uploaded her presentation video here with the story.

It begins:

"We are facing a global water crisis. In fact, providing access to clean drinking water has even been identified as one of the 14 grand challenges our planet is facing. While on vacation in India I witnessed  the sight of children drinking dirty water from a stagnant pool. I instantly knew I had to do something about the global water crisis."

She ends the presentation with a punch, by pointing out that in the five minutes it took her to explain her project, 15 children had died from lack of clean water.

Deepika won a $25,000 prize which she is saving toward her college education, and a trip to Costa Rica with the other three top young scientists from the competition.

While talking about her aspirations, Deepika also gave props to her former science mentors at Fairgrounds, including science teachers Sue Rowse and Hank Castonguay. Deepika would like to see New Hampshire schools invest more resources in science for kids her age.

"Nashua is getting a lot better when it comes to science, but New Hampshire as a whole doesn't have a middle school science competition, a science fair, so I really want to push toward that, which is why I entered this competition, because it's national. But I think we can do better, and so we should," Deepika said.

When not working on solving the global water crisis, Deepika enjoys martial arts – she's got a black belt in karate and is working toward a black belt in tae kwan do. She said she owes much of her accomplishments in science to her parents, who got her involved in science and math at an early age and encouraged her curious nature.

"They weren't pushy parents, but they were there to help push me toward the things I was already interested in," Deepika said. "Without them I wouldn't be where I am today."

The celebration at Fairgrounds included a brief presentation for the students during which Deepika encouraged them to apply for next year's competition, and a hands-on presentation by a 3M Discovery Science educator.