Needhi Bhalla is an American biologist. She researches mitosis and meiosis in ''

Caenorhabditis elegans ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (ro ...

''. Bhalla is a professor at

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

Early life and education

Needhi Bhalla was raised on the southern shore of

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

near

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. She was born to Indian parents in

Khatri Khatri is a caste of the Indian subcontinent that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade, they were the d ...

family who emigrated to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s for higher education opportunities. Bhalla's mother is a nutritionist and her father, a

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

engineer. In 1993, Bhalla worked as a summer intern with

John Kornblum John Christian Kornblum (born February 6, 1943) is an American diplomat and businessman. He entered the American Foreign Service in 1964. Over the next 35 years, he served at the State Department in Washington and in Europe. Since 2001, he has ...

in the New York City Public Health Laboratories. In 1995, she graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from

Columbia College (New York) Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded by the Church of England in 1754 as King' ...

. One summer during her undergraduate studies, Bhalla researched in Teri Melese's lab at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

where she learned of her interest in cell biology. Bhalla completed a Doctor of Philosophy at

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

in 2002. She completed her doctoral research in Andrew W. Murray's lab where she researched mitotic chromosome segregation in yeast. Bhalla researched meiosis in ''

C. elegans ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (r ...

'' during her postdoctoral studies in Abby Dernburg's lab at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

Career

Bhalla worked as an assistant professor from 2008 to 2015 in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at

. She became an associate professor in 2015, and was appointed to full professorship in 2019. Bhalla is on the working group of Mothers in Science which works to evaluate scientific conference guidelines to address barriers facing parents.

Personal life

Bhalla has two sons.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhalla, Needhi Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Long Island Columbia College (New York) alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people American people of Indian descent 20th-century American biologists 21st-century American biologists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists American women biologists People from Nassau County, New York Biologists from New York (state)