Indian American students shine in California science fair

New York, April 27 (IANS) Indian American students shone in this years's California State Science Fair, grabbing the top award, six first place honours and various other awards.

Eesha Khare, a 12th grade student of Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California, won the top award for 'Project of the Year' in the senior grade at the fair held earlier this year, India-West reported Saturday.

Khare also won a $5,000 for her project, 'Design and Synthesis of Hydrogenated TiO2-Polyaniline Nanorods for Flexible High-Performance Supercapacitors'.

"My project this year created a cost effective, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient water purification filter, using photo-activated Nano-TiO2," she told India-West.

"I developed a filter, and a prototype design, which can be applied in rural and modern settings all around the world."

Last summer, Khare had completed an internship with Water and Sanitation Management Organisation, which has a mandate to provide clean drinking water to 18,000 villages in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Stating that it was an eye-opening experience for her, she said: "After coming back to the US, I visited the Rinconada Water Treatment plant in Santa Clara County, which provides 80 million gallons of clean drinking water to the Silicon Valley every day, where I saw the Silicon Valley water treatment method. It was truly fascinating to see, and it allowed me to gain insight on water purification on a large scale."

The five Indian American students who won first place honours winners in the junior category are Mythri Ambatipudi of Stratford Middle School, San Jose, Venkat N. Sankar, of The Harker School, San Jose, Ashwath M. Radhachandran, of Thurgood Middle School, San Diego, and Shashank H. Dholakia and Shishir H. Dholakia, of Marion A. Peterson Middle School, Sunnyvale.

This year, 1,037 students from all over California participated in the fair that was held at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles.