Shyamala Gopalan

Shyamala Gopalan

Shyamala Gopalan was an American biomedical scientist born in British India. Her work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology. She was the mother of Kamala Harris, a California Senator and Vice President-elect of the United States.

About Shyamala Gopalan in brief

Summary Shyamala GopalanShyamala Gopalan was an American biomedical scientist born in British India. Her work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology. She was the mother of Kamala Harris, a California Senator and Vice President-elect of the United States. She also had a younger sister, Maya Harris, who is a lawyer and political commentator. Shyamala was the daughter of an Indian civil servant, P. V. Gopala and his wife, Rajam GopAlan. She studied for a BSc in Home Science at Lady Irwin College in New Delhi, a leading women’s college in India.

She eventually earned a PhD in nutrition and endocrinology at UC Berkeley in 1964. She worked as a breast cancer researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin. She served as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and as a site visit team member for the Federal Advisory Committee. She mentored dozens of students in her lab.