Maya Burhanpurkar

**Maya Burhanpurkar** was a contestant on Season 2.

## Background

*Retrieved from CBC.ca*

Maya is an internationaly recognized science prodigy with many, many accolaides. She wants to show girls everywhere that being smart is cool.

At the age of 16, Maya has accomplished more in the field of science than many scientists do in their entire careers. Maya developed an intelligent antibiotic at age 12, received the Grand Platinum Award at the Youth Science Fair for her work on the cardiac and gastrointestinal safety of Alzheimer’s drugs at age 13, and represented Canada with her physics research at the International Science and Engineering Fair at age 14. Last year she was the President of Canada’s largest STEM outreach non-profit science expo. She has been named one of Canada’s Top 20 Under 20 and Ontario’s Junior Citizen of the Year.

Maya was the youngest-ever President of her school’s Student Council, is an avid skier, and is currently filming a documentary on the effect of climate change on Inuit communities featuring Chris Hadfield and Margaret Atwood.

## Episode 201

Before Maya was summoned to the stage, a clip of her and the other three contestants, Anthony Craparotta, Jessica Joy, and Richard Pinnock, introducing themselves was shown. In this clip, apart from introducing herself, Maya stated that she is currently tracking near-Earth asteroids and intends to submit the related data to the Harvard Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics and that she hopes to show girls everywhere that it is cool to be smart. In the first challenge, Beat It, Maya and Anthony both got 4 correct answers, but the former answered faster on average than the latter did. As a result, Maya finished in 1st place and was awarded 5 overall points.

In the second challenge, Crosswalk, Maya got 2 correct answers in the first round and 1 in the second round. With a total of 3 correct answers, Maya finished in 1st place and was awarded 5 overall points.

In the third challenge, Human Lie Detector, Maya was the last contestant to ask guest Amber Marshall her question about one of her stories. She asked what the most interesting thing Kate Middleton told her was. Amber replied that it was that they both rode their first horse when they were five years old. Maya got 2 correct answers. As a result, Maya finished in 2nd place and was awarded 3 overall points. In the fourth challenge, Letter Chaos, Maya got 2 points. As a result, Maya finished in 3rd place and was awarded 2 overall points.

In the fifth challenge, Balls of Fury, Maya finished catching her red balls 1 minute and 11 seconds into the challenge and correctly completed her equation grid and finished 1 minute and 26 seconds into the challenge. As a result, Maya finished in 3rd place and was awarded 4 overall points. After the first five challenges, Maya had received a total of 19 overall points. As a result, she finished in 2nd place and was congratulated by Jessi, along with Anthony, for qualifying for the Gauntlet.

In the sixth and final challenge, the Gauntlet, Anthony gained the early lead on Maya as the former completed the first three sections at a decent speed and arrived at the physical section just as the latter finished unscrambling her final word at the linguistic section. However, Maya managed to catch up to Anthony due to both her speed in completing the subsequent two sections and Anthony having a couple of mishaps at the physical section. Right after this though, Anthony finally completed the physical section and proceeded to the logical section, which he completed with ease. Ultimately, Maya stopped at the physical section as Anthony hit the buzzer, which signalled his victory and his spot in the season finale. After the challenge ended and Anthony was declared the first finalist of the season, Maya and the other three contestants celebrated onstage with Jessi.

### Summary of Results

 5

  WON  This contestant won the final challenge and advanced to the finale.
  LOST  This contestant lost the final challenge and was eliminated from the competition.
  ELIMINATED  This contestant was already eliminated from the competition.
     This contestant qualified for the final challenge due to a sufficient total score.
     This contestant was eliminated from the competition due to an insufficient total score.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on linguistic intelligence.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on physical intelligence.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on musical intelligence.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on visual intelligence.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on social intelligence.
     Denotes a challenge that is based on logical intelligence.
### Notes

1. ↑ Despite sharing a total score of 4, Maya answered faster on average than Anthony did in the challenge. Therefore, Maya and Anthony placed 1st and 2nd, respectively, for this challenge.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://web.archive.org/web/20151103162039/http://www.cbc.ca/smartestperson/participants/maya
2. ↑ https://www.cbc.ca/smartestperson/blog/canadas-smartest-person-is-back-and-better-than-ever
3. ↑ https://www.cbc.ca/smartestperson/blog/meet-the-first-four-competitors-for-season-two