Mayim Hoya Bialik is best known for her lead role in the 1990s NBC sitcom Blossom, as well as for her portrayal of the young Bette Midler in “Beaches.” She has also appeared in Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water” and HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Bialik was born to first-generation American teachers and documentary filmmakers and was raised in Los Angeles, attending both public and religious school. Bialik has guest starred on some of the most beloved TV shows of the 1980s and 1990s including MacGyver, The Facts of Life, and Webster. She has appeared numerous times on The Tonight Show, the Arsenio Hall Show, and on Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart’s early forays into late-night.

Bialik received her B.S. in Neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish Studies from UCLA in 2000 and earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2007 from UCLA, specializing in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome. She is the celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network, a national non-profit organization dedicated to supporting holistic and green parenting and living.

Bialik gave birth to a son in 2005, and a second son (born at home, largely unassisted) in 2008. She is a Certified Lactation Educator Counselor and is devoted to a lifestyle of attachment parenting, homeschooling, natural family living, and vegan cooking. Bialik is the co-founder and chair of the youth branch of the Jewish Free Loan Association (Genesis) and enjoys speaking on a variety of topics, including her journey to embracing traditional Jewish values. She studies Jewish texts weekly with two study partners.

Recent appearances include recurring roles on “Secret Life of the American Teenager” and FOX’s “Til Death.” She portrayed 1960′s activist Nancy Kurshan in “Chicago 8,” and she appears regularly on CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” as Sheldon’s friend who is not his girlfriend, Amy Farrah Fowler. Bialik is currently writing a book on holistic parenting, to be released by Simon & Schuster in early 2012.