Featured Restaurant: Easy Street Cantina...see page 26 Gitanjali Rao at MMA..see

Yesterday’s Island/Today’s Nantucket

Vol. 51 No.8 • YesterdaysIsland.com July 22-28, 2021 Page 3 MMA Talk features

Young Scientist with Global Reach

This Wednesday, July 28, at 7pm, Gitanjali Rao, TIME magazine’s first Kid of the Year, will speak at the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association’s (MMA) Science Speaker Series. Her talk, “The Role of Science and Technology as a Catalyst for Social Change” is part of this island organization’s Science Speaker Series and will be held via Zoom.

Born in 2005, this young Colorado resident has an impressive resume: in addition to being an inventor, an author, and a scientist, she plays piano and is adept at fencing, swimming, and classical Indian dance. Despite her brilliance, the 15year-old is humble. She said in one of her sessions for young people “Don’t try to fix every problem, just focus on one that excites you. If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

Gitanjali Rao was recognized as America's Top Young Scientist and received an EPA Presidential Award for inventing her device "Tethys"— a quick, low-cost test to detect lead-contaminated water. Rao is also the inventor of “Epione”— a device for early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction using genetic engineering, and "Kindly," an anti-cyberbullying service using AI and Natural Language processing.z

Rao was honored as Forbes “30 Under 30 in Science” in 2019—at a time when she was way under 30—and TIME’s “Top Young Innovator” as well as "TIME Kid of the Year" for her innovations and STEM workshops she conducts globally, which have inspired more than 50,000 students during the last two years across four continents. During her sessions, she shares her own process of innovation that can be used by students all over the world. She is an experienced TED speaker and often presents in global and corporate forums on innovation and the impor-

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