Lipsa Bharati (circled) earned a ticket to the international event because of her outstanding performance at a national-level chemistry seminar. Telegraph picture

Angul, Nov. 7: Lipsa Bharati has been on cloud nine ever since she found out about her trip to the birthplace of Marie Curie.

The 14-year-old girl from Angul has been selected as part of a 10-member team to represent the country at an international chemistry conference in Poland early next year.

Lipsa, a Class IX student of DAV Public School, Talcher Thermal, earned a ticket to the international event because of her outstanding performance at a national-level chemistry seminar.

She bagged the second position among 34 students from all the states, except Sikkim (because of the recent earthquake there) and Union territories of the country, which participated at the competition conducted by the National Science Centre.

“I am overjoyed about my selection to visit a foreign country. After winning the state-level seminar on the topic, ‘Chemistry for Human Welfare – Promises and Concerns’, I was confident about performing well at the national level also.

“However, I lost the first position to a participant from Tamil Nadu. I owe my success to my teachers, parents and friends,” Lipsa said.

Authorities at her school said the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry would organise the international conference in Poland to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day Marie Curie — physicist-chemist known for her pathbreaking research on radioactivity and a Polish citizen — won the Noble Prize.

“Lipsa is a brilliant student and she has a very keen interest in science. She is a good orator. She had earlier won the block and district level competitions too.

“We expected her to come out with flying colours at the national seminar and she lived up to our expectations,” said the principal of DAV Talcher Thermal, P.K. Nayak.

“The national seminar was thrown open for all the students across India. Lipsa, of course, worked very hard to win it.

“She is now striving harder for the international event and we hope that she will bring glory to our country,” said Lipsa’s mother, Shyamamani Besoi, a teacher at the Nalco-based Saraswati Sishu Vidya Mandir.