Maya Burhanpurkar (born February 14, 1999) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

researcher Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

Personal life

Burhanpurkar was born in

Orillia Orillia is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is in Simcoe County between Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe. Although it is geographically located within Simcoe County, the city is a single-tier municipality. It is part of the Huronia region of ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and completed high school in 2016 at

Barrie North Collegiate Institute Barrie North Collegiate Institute is a public secondary school (grades 9–12) located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1957 as part of the Simcoe County District School Board in southern Ontario. The principal is Greg Brucker. ...

. She is currently an undergraduate majoring in physics at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

. She has been awarded a Rhodes scholarship to study Computer Science and the Philosophy of Physics at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

Career

At the age of 10, Burhanpurkar built a microbiology lab in her family basement and began conducting scientific experiments after volunteering in a hospital in India. Two years later, she developed an intelligent-antibiotic which selectively kills pathogenic bacteria such as

E-coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

but preserves intestinal microbiota. When she was 13, she received the Platinum Award at the Canada-Wide Science Fair for her work on the

cardiac The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

and

gastrointestinal The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans and ...

safety of two Alzheimer's drugs. Burhanpurkar was inspired to study the safety of Alzheimer’s drugs after the death of her grandfather from Alzheimer’s disease. At the age of 14, Burhanpurkar conducted fundamental physics research for which she was again awarded the Platinum Award at the Canada-Wide Science fair. She made the first physical detection of

absement In kinematics, absement (or absition) is a measure of sustained displacement of an object from its initial position, i.e. a measure of how far away and for how long. The word ''absement'' is a portmanteau of the words ''absence'' and ''displ ...

with a team in Steve Mann’s lab, competed at the

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual science fair in the United States. It is owned and administered by the Society for Science, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. Each May, more th ...

, and was selected as a regional finalist for the 2013

Google Science Fair The Google Science Fair was a worldwide (excluding Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe and any other U.S. sanctioned country) online science competition sponsored by Google, Lego, Virgin Galactic, National Geographic ...

. She filmed a documentary on the

effects of climate change The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice ( glaciers), sea le ...

on Inuit communities featuring Chris Hadfield and Margaret Atwood after an expedition to the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

which received the international Gloria Barron prize. In 2013, Burhanpurkar was named one of Canada's Top 20 Under 20. She was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012) and was the Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year (2010).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burhanpurkar, Maya 1999 births Living people 21st-century Canadian inventors Marathi people People from Orillia Women inventors Harvard College alumni Canadian Rhodes Scholars