Shyamala Gopalan
E141162
Shyamala Gopalan was an Indian-born cancer researcher and civil rights activist best known as the mother of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Shyamala Gopalan canonical | 9 |
| Kamala Kaul | 1 |
| Sarala Gopalan | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1119706 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shyamala Gopalan Context triple: [Kamala Harris, mother, Shyamala Gopalan]
-
A.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen
Nabaneeta Dev Sen was a prominent Indian Bengali writer, poet, and academic known for her contributions to contemporary Bengali literature and feminist thought.
-
B.
Lakshmi Sahgal
Lakshmi Sahgal was an Indian freedom fighter, physician, and revolutionary leader best known for commanding the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army.
-
C.
Prabhavati Bose
Prabhavati Bose was an Indian woman best known as the mother of prominent freedom fighter and nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose.
-
D.
Ritu Banga
Ritu Banga is an Indian-American businesswoman and co-founder of the talent advisory firm Zoomdojo, known also as the wife of Mastercard executive and World Bank president Ajay Banga.
-
E.
Mrinalini Devi
Mrinalini Devi was the wife of Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, remembered primarily for her quiet support during his early political and spiritual life.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shyamala Gopalan Target entity description: Shyamala Gopalan was an Indian-born cancer researcher and civil rights activist best known as the mother of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
-
A.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen
Nabaneeta Dev Sen was a prominent Indian Bengali writer, poet, and academic known for her contributions to contemporary Bengali literature and feminist thought.
-
B.
Lakshmi Sahgal
Lakshmi Sahgal was an Indian freedom fighter, physician, and revolutionary leader best known for commanding the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army.
-
C.
Prabhavati Bose
Prabhavati Bose was an Indian woman best known as the mother of prominent freedom fighter and nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose.
-
D.
Ritu Banga
Ritu Banga is an Indian-American businesswoman and co-founder of the talent advisory firm Zoomdojo, known also as the wife of Mastercard executive and World Bank president Ajay Banga.
-
E.
Mrinalini Devi
Mrinalini Devi was the wife of Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, remembered primarily for her quiet support during his early political and spiritual life.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
cancer researcher
ⓘ
civil rights activist ⓘ immigrant to the United States ⓘ person ⓘ |
| birthDate | 1938-04-07 ⓘ |
| birthPlace |
British India
ⓘ
Chennai ⓘ Madras Presidency ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath | colon cancer ⓘ |
| child |
Kamala Harris
ⓘ
Maya Harris ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | India ⓘ |
| deathDate | 2009-02-11 ⓘ |
| degree | PhD in nutrition and endocrinology ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Lady Irwin College
ⓘ
University of California, Berkeley ⓘ University of Delhi ⓘ |
| employer |
Jewish General Hospital, Montreal
ⓘ
linked to:
Jewish General Hospital
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ⓘ McGill University ⓘ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ⓘ
linked to:
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
|
| ethnicGroup | Tamil ⓘ |
| familyName | Gopalan ⓘ |
| fatherOccupation | Indian civil servant ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
breast cancer research
ⓘ
cancer biology ⓘ endocrinology ⓘ |
| fullName | Shyamala Gopalan Harris ⓘ |
| givenName | Shyamala ⓘ |
| inspired | Kamala Harris’s interest in civil rights and social justice ⓘ |
| knownFor |
being the mother of Kamala Harris
ⓘ
civil rights activism in the United States ⓘ research on the progesterone receptor gene in relation to breast cancer ⓘ |
| movedFor | graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley ⓘ |
| movedTo |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| occupation |
biomedical researcher
ⓘ
scientist ⓘ university researcher ⓘ |
| parent |
P. V. Gopalan
ⓘ
Rajam Gopalan ⓘ |
| politicalActivity | participation in the American civil rights movement ⓘ |
| religion | Hinduism ⓘ |
| residence |
Berkeley, California
ⓘ
linked to:
Berkeley
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois ⓘ
linked to:
Champaign, Illinois, United States
Montreal, Quebec ⓘ
linked to:
Montreal
|
| spouse | Donald J. Harris NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| spouseEmployer | Stanford University ⓘ |
| spouseOccupation | economist ⓘ |
| yearOfMove | 1958 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Shyamala Gopalan Description of subject: Shyamala Gopalan was an Indian-born cancer researcher and civil rights activist best known as the mother of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
Referenced by (11)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Shyamala Gopalan
linked to: Shyamala Gopalan