Deepika Kurup

Deepika Kurup is a scientist who found a way to clean dirty water using sunlight. She was born on April 12, 1998, in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her parents, Pradeep and Meena Kurup, came to the United States from India.

When Deepika was young, she visited her grandparents in India. There, she saw children collecting water that was very dirty. It was too dirty to even touch. This made Deepika sad. She learned that many people around the world do not have clean water to drink. She decided she wanted to help fix this problem.

Back home, Deepika's parents helped her set up a small lab in the garage. She used the family kitchen too. She started doing experiments to clean water.

Deepika was very good at science and math in school. By ninth grade, she was already doing her own science projects. Later, she studied a subject called neuroscience, which is about the brain, at Harvard University. After that, she trained to become a doctor. Today, she works as a doctor at Boston Children's Hospital.

When Deepika was about fourteen, she began working on her big idea. She wanted to make clean water using sunlight. She used special materials, like titanium dioxide, that can kill germs when the sun shines on them. She built a system where water passed through these materials. The sunlight helped destroy the bad bacteria in the water.

Her invention worked very well. Tests showed it could get rid of almost all the bad germs in dirty water. Later, she made an even better version using a material like concrete that let water flow through while cleaning it.

Deepika's invention is special because it is cheap to make. It does not need electricity, just sunlight. This means people in poor or faraway places, who might not have power, can still use it to get clean water.

Deepika started an organization called Catalyst for World Water. It helps bring her water-cleaning invention to places that need it most.

Deepika has won many awards. In 2012, she won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and was called "America's Top Young Scientist." She won $25,000! In 2013, she won the President's Environmental Youth Award. In 2014, she won the U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize. She was also named to Forbes "30 Under 30." She even went to the White House Science Fair two times!

Big news groups like National Geographic and CNN have told her story. They called her a "student scientist" and a "star student."

Deepika also loves to give talks. She gave a famous talk called a TED talk about her journey to find clean water. She tells other kids that science can change the world. She wants more young people, especially girls, to love science too.

Deepika Kurup shows that anyone, even a kid working in a garage, can find ways to solve big problems. Her hard work has helped bring hope for clean water to people everywhere. She continues to work as a doctor and still cares deeply about clean water for all.