Shyamala went to the MEA school in Delhi and received her Higher Secondary Certificate in 1955.[2] She studied for a Bachelor of Science in Home Science at Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi. Her father thought the subject—which taught skills considered helpful in homemaking—was a mismatch for her abilities; her mother expected the children to seek careers in medicine, engineering, or law.[8] In 1958, aged 19, Shyamala unexpectedly applied to the master's program in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley, and was accepted. Her parents used some of their retirement savings to pay her tuition and board during the first year.[8] Lacking a phone line at home, they communicated with her by aerogram after she arrived in the U.S. She earned a Ph.D. in nutrition and endocrinology at UC Berkeley in 1964.[8] Shyamala's dissertation, which was supervised by Richard L. Lyman,[1] was titled The isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole wheat flour.[11]
Shyamala's research led to advancements in the knowledge of hormones pertaining to breast cancer.[13][6] Her work in the isolation and characterization of the progesterone receptor gene in mice changed research on the hormone-responsiveness of breast tissue.[6]
Personal life
In the fall of 1962, at a meeting of the Afro-American Association—a students' group at Berkeley whose members would go on to give structure to the discipline of Black studies, propose the holiday of Kwanzaa, and help establish the Black Panther Party—Shyamala met a graduate student in economics from Jamaica, Donald J. Harris, who was that day's speaker.[14] According to Donald Harris, who is now an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, "We talked then, continued to talk at a subsequent meeting, and at another, and another."[14] In 1963, they were married without following the convention of introducing Harris to Shyamala's parents beforehand or having the ceremony in her hometown.[8] In the later 1960s, Donald and Shyamala took their daughters, Kamala, then four or five years old, and Maya, two years younger, to newly independent Zambia, where Shyamala's father, P. V. Gopalan, was on an advisory assignment.[8] After Shyamala and Donald divorced in the early 1970s, she took her daughters to India several times to visit her parents in Chennai, where they had retired.[8][15]
The children also visited their father's family in Jamaica during their childhood.[16]
Wanda Kagan, one of Kamala's high school friends in Montreal, described how after she told Kamala her stepfather was molesting her, Shyamala insisted she move in with them for her final year of high school.[17] Kagan said that Shyamala helped her navigate the system to get the support she needed to live independently of her family.
Death
Shyamala died of colon cancer in Oakland on February 11, 2009, at age 70.[6] She requested that donations be made to the organization Breast Cancer Action.[6] Later in 2009, Kamala Harris carried her mother's ashes to Chennai on the southeastern coast of peninsular India and dispersed them in the Indian Ocean waters.[18]
Notes
^As per the cited sources and the common naming conventions of her family, Gopalan Shyamala was her legal name in India,[2] while Shyamala Gopalan conforms to Western name order. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, as the first, middle and last names, was her legal name in the United States.[3] In some U.S. government documents, she placed her given name in the surname field and her patronymic in the given name field. She worked jobs under her maiden name even after she married.[4]
Selected publications
Shyamala, G.; Chou, Y. C.; Louie, S. G.; Guzman, R. C.; Smith, G. H.; Nandi, S. (2002). "Cellular expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors in mammary glands: Regulation by hormones, development and aging". The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 80 (2): 137–148. doi:10.1016/s0960-0760(01)00182-0. PMID11897499.
Shyamala, G. (1999). "Progesterone Signaling and Mammary Gland Morphogenesis". Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia. 4 (1): 89–104. doi:10.1023/A:1018760721173. PMID10219909.
Shyamala, G.; Louie, Sharianne G.; Camarillo, Ignacio G.; Talamantes, Frank (1999). "The Progesterone Receptor and Its Isoforms in Mammary Development". Molecular Genetics and Metabolism. 68 (2): 182–190. doi:10.1006/mgme.1999.2897. PMID10527668.
^Tabasko, Michael (July–August 2021), "A Fortuitious Connection: Vice President Kamala Harris's Mother and Her NIH Collaborations"(PDF), NIH Catalyst, 29 (4), National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director: 1, 6, Gopalan eventually left Canada and returned to California to continue her work on the role of hormone receptors in breast-cancer development at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, California). She was awarded several NIH grants supporting her research through 2001, and her lab published their findings in 2006 (Cancer Res 66:10391–10398, 2006). (Photo caption: Shyamala Gopalan Harris (left) in her lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.)
^ abBengali, Shashank; Mason, Melanie (October 25, 2019), "The progressive Indian grandfather who inspired Kamala Harris", Los Angeles Times, retrieved April 24, 2020, He started out as a stenographer, and moved the family from New Delhi to Mumbai to Kolkata as he climbed the ranks of the civil service.
^"Gazette of India, 1956, No. 34 (Archived)". Government of India. February 4, 1956. p. 56. Retrieved July 27, 2024. No, A-5(16)/55.—The services of Shri P. V. Gopalan, permanent Grade I officer of the Central Secretariat Service and employed as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Transport (Roads Wing), were placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Rehabilitation with effect from the 31st December, 1955 (A.N.)
^Gettleman, Jeffrey; Raj, Suhasini (August 16, 2020). "How Kamala Harris's Family in India Helped Shape Her Values". New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2020. One sunny morning, Ms. Harris and her uncle walked down to the beach in Besant Nagar where she used to stroll with her grandfather all those years ago, and scattered the ashes on the waves.
