Mayim Bialik

Mayim Hoya Bialik (born December 12, 1975) is an American neuroscientist and actress. She is best known for her lead role as Blossom Russo in the early-1990s NBC sitcom Blossom.

Early life
Bialik was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Barbara, a nursery school director, and John Bialik, a high school drama teacher. Her grandparents emigrated in the late 1930s from Poland and Czechoslovakia/Hungary. Bialik was raised in Reform Judaism.

Career
Bialik started her career as a child actress in the late 1980s. Her early roles included the horror film Pumpkinhead, her first acting job; and guest appearances on The Facts of Life and Beauty and the Beast. In 1988, she appeared in Beaches (1988), playing Bette Midler's character as a young girl. She was also featured in the video clip of Liberian Girl by Michael Jackson.

In 1990, Bialik was tied to two television pilots, Fox's Molloy and NBC's Blossom. Molloy at first produced six episodes for a tryout run, followed by the shooting of the pilot special for Blossom. The latter actually aired two weeks before Bialik's Fox series, and ultimately garnered higher ratings than it. When Molloy folded after its six episodes, Blossom was pursued as a regular series. The actress' greatest success to date came in 1991 when Blossom joined NBC's Monday night lineup following The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Both shows enjoyed popularity, especially among younger viewers, for the first couple of years of their respective runs. Blossom aired until 1995.

Between 1995 and 2005, Bialik mostly did voice work for cartoons, such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and Recess.

She appeared in the feature film Kalamazoo? released in late 2005. She appeared in three episodes of the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm as Jodi Funkhouser, the lesbian daughter of a friend of Larry David. Bialik also made guest appearances as a fictionalized version of herself in the series Fat Actress. Bialik had a guest appearance as a Hasidic Jew in an episode of Saving Grace. She has a recurring role as the high school guidance counselor in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager and also guest-starred as a potential girlfriend for the character Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons, in the 3rd season finale and the 4th season premiere of the hit CBS comedy series The Big Bang Theory. She also had an appearance on the Fox TV show 'Til Death in which she has a reunion of sorts with two of her Blossom costars- Jenna von Oÿ – who played Blossom’s quirky best-friend Six – and Michael Stoyanov – who played Blossom’s older brother Anthony. She has optioned the Rashi's Daughters books.

It was announced on July 14, 2010 that Mayim will be writing her first book, to be called Intuitive Parenting.

Personal life
At the end of Blossom, she chose to attend UCLA, despite having been accepted at both Harvard and Yale. She stated that she wanted to stay close to her parents and did not want to move to the East Coast. She earned a bachelor's degree in 2000 in neuroscience, Hebrew, and Jewish studies, and went on to the PhD. program in neuroscience. A 2002 interview stated that Bialik is now involved in Conservadox Judaism. She continues to study Judaism with the help of her Partners in Torah partner, Allison Josephs.

She took a break from studies in 2005 to return to acting. Bialik completed her PhD in 2008, but is not pursuing an academic career in the near future; her dissertation was an investigation of Prader-Willi syndrome.

She married Michael Stone on August 31, 2003, in a Victorian-themed ceremony with traditional Jewish customs. They have two sons together; Miles Roosevelt Bialik Stone was born on October 10, 2005, and Frederick Heschel Bialik Stone was born on August 15, 2008. She is a celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network.

Hayim Nahman Bialik, Israel's national poet, was Mayim Bialik's great-great-grandfather's uncle.

She was featured in TLC's What Not to Wear in an episode which aired May 29, 2009. The actress Rachael Harris also appears in the episode, as one of Mayim's friends at the reveal party that show always closes with.

She is vegan.