Neilly Series: Gitanjali Rao

Please join us for the fourth session of this year's Neilly Lecture Series! 

January 23, 2023
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Hawkins-Carlson Room,
Rush Rhees Library
OR
Online via Zoom 

As all the books highlighted in this year’s Neilly talks support key concepts in the biopsychosocial model—developed by University professors George Engel and John Romano to serve as the cornerstone of psychiatric education and training—the 2022–2023 Neilly Author Series season is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the University of Rochester’s Department of Psychiatry.

Seventeen year old Gitanjali Rao was recognized as America’s Top Young Scientist and received an EPA Presidential award for inventing her device “Tethys” – an early lead detection tool.  Gitanjali 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 Al and Natural Language processing.  She is currently conducting research on early detection of pathogens at the Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard.

She was honored as Forbes “30 under 30 in Science” in 2019 and TIME’S “Top Young Innovator” and TIME “Kid of the Year” for her innovations and STEM workshops she conducts globally, which has inspired over 68,000 students across six continents and 43 countries.  In her sessions, she shares her own process of innovation that can be used by students all over the world.  She often presents in global and corporate forums on innovation and the importance of STEM.

Gitanjali is the author of the book “Young Innovator’s Guild to STEM”, available on 5 languages, which guides students, educators, or teachers with a prescribed 5 step innovation process.  She was honored as one of America's Top Youth Volunteers by Prudential in 2021 and was appointed as a UNICEF Youth Advocate for using science for solving social problems such as cyber-bullying and developing solutions for environmental protection. She received a grant as a National Geographic young Explorer to expand her workshops and self-sustain them beyond her.  She has fundraised over $90K for different STEM programs including enhancing a maker-space in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya while mentoring students for innovation challenges.

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