CHENNAI: What will happen to a man with wings made of wax if he goes near the sun — will he fall or stay afloat? That was the question posed to Samridhi Chordia at an aerospace workshop she attended as a Class 6 student. The exercise had little to do with Icarus, his father Daedalus or Greek mythology, but everything to do with fundamental concepts of science.
“They explained concepts like a story,“ Samridhi says, noting that it sparked her curiosity. Over the years, curiosity to deeply understand concepts has shaped the 17-year-old’s approach to research.
A student from Okkiyam Thoraipakkam in Chennai, Samridhi has developed an artificial intelligence and machine-learning project to detect water contamination and is now set to jointly publish a research paper with Dr Corey Oses, Assistant Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University, USA, in a Cambridge University journal.
Clad in grey jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt, she explains her work at a rapid pace, moving effortlessly between chemistry, data and real-world application. A student of APL Global School, that follows the Cambridge IGCSE syllabus, she showed a strong aptitude for math from a young age, enrolling in all three advanced mathematics electives—mechanics, statistics and probability, and pure maths—alongside her regular coursework.
Originally from Rajasthan, Samridhi is the fourth generation of the Chordia family who settled in Chennai after migrating nearly 90 years ago. Her father, Pradeep Chordia, who works in a family-run automotive business, said very few students take on such additional courses, given the demanding syllabus.
Samridhi’s approach to learning has always been about grasping fundamentals rather than memorising. That mindset was reinforced at the Vayushastra aerospace workshop, where she gained experience building drones and explored projects like converting atmospheric water into drinking water. She recalls struggling initially with stoichiometry in Class 9, until she understood the basics, after which science became much easier.
In May 2024, after completing Class 10, Samridhi approached Dr Corey Oses, who took her on as a research intern for about two months each in 2024 and 2025. During the internship, she worked with ‘Legolas’, a robotic system capable of autonomously conducting scientific experiments, and gained exposure to sensors.
On her return to Chennai, she learnt about the concepts of the Internet of Things (IoT) and began thinking about how these tools could be applied to local challenges. She was inspired to develop the project after learning about the absence of maintenance of waterbodies rejuvenated under the union government’s Mission Amrit Sarovar scheme, which aims to develop 75 waterbodies in every district to improve water conservation.
This led to the development of Jal Sarovar, a web-based platform designed to detect water contamination in residential and public spaces. Using publicly available data, she trained an AI model on around 50,000 water samples and now monitors about 3,000 samples regularly. Recently, she received approval from A Radhakrishnan, Chief Engineer of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, to access water sample data collected across Chennai city by them over the past three years.
Developed as a website (www.jalsarovar.com), the platform analyses 40 water-quality parameters, including pH, turbidity, and TDS (Total Dissolved Salts). It identifies contamination levels and also provides forecasting. Samridhi says it took nearly 18 months to develop the project, during which she balanced schoolwork with strong support from her parents, teachers and classmates. The larger goal, Samridhi says, is to see Jal Sarovar helping monitor and protect waterbodies long-term.
(Edited by Adarsh TR)