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What was Kamala Harris' first job? VP says she worked 'cleaning pipettes' in scientist mother's lab as a child

Harris praised her mother's work as a breast cancer researcher and lauded scientists while receiving her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine

Vice President Kamala Harris visited the National Institutes of Health headquarters for a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and praised the health workers and spoke about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who was a breast cancer researcher. Harris also said that her first job was cleaning pipettes for her mother. During her visit on Tuesday, January 26, the VP said, "Growing up, our mother would go... we would always know that mommy was going to this place called Bethesda. Mommy's going to Bethesda, now we're living in California... My mother would go to Bethesda and of course, what she was doing was coming here to NIH. She was in the biochemical endocrinology section."

She continued, "She was a peer reviewer. My mother had two goals in her life: to raise her two daughters and end breast cancer. In fact, a little known fact is that my first job was cleaning pipettes in my mother's lab. She would take us there with her after school and on weekends."

Harris then said, "I grew up around science in a way that was taught to me by someone who was so profoundly passionate about a gift which the scientists give to us," saying that scientists' "reason for being is to pursue what is possible for the sake of improving human life and condition."

She continued, "It is such a noble pursuit. And the importance of NIH is that this is about an essential function of government. Which is to provide for the public health. The work that happens here has one goal: to improve public health. And the importance of the pursuit of the work that happens at NIH is it's not about profit. It's about the people."

She went on to praise the people working in science, saying, "I know what you do. I know that you work around the clock with those experiments that have to be checked on every few hours and they don't care about what time it is on the clock. I know the work you do and the collaboration that is required. I know the work that you do reviewing grants. Because of course some of the most significant scientific research has been publicly funded. That's what my mother did, she reviewed grants."

She said that she had the "luxury of being here at this moment on just the fifth day of our administration coming full circle. Because you see, NIH was such a huge part of my youth as this place that my mother went all the time and was very excited to work."

Many took to social media to praise the vice president for talking about the importance of science. One user wrote, "As a laboratorian hearing any politician talk about cleaning pipettes does my heart much good." 

A user tweeted, "My 18yo niece who’s graduating from high school this year, mentioned your mother in her college essays on one of the reasons she wants to major in chemistry and why she wants to be a oncologist/scientist. I never knew she knew about your mother. Representation matters." Another opined, "What a beautiful tribute to your mother, Madam Vice President and Ms. Harris. I am thankful for Dr. Gopalan’s contributions to the fight against breast cancer."