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Malcom was born Shirley Mahaley in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 6, 1946. Her father, Ben Mahaley, was a veteran of the Pacific theater of World War II who worked in a pipe shop with his father. Her mother was Lillie Mahaley, a homemaker and teacher. After Ben Mahaley was drafted into the war, Lillie Mahaley moved into her mother’s (Malcom’s grandmother) house with her firstborn child, Sandra, who was born in 1942. Malcolm grew up in the highly segregated Collegeville neighborhood of Birmingham. Malcolm attended the Hudson School and Lewis School for her primary education, where her mother was a teacher. In early years, Malcom’s extended family and her engagement with Bethel Baptist Church, where her mother attended service, were central parts of her life. Malcolm grew up with the love and warmth of her extended family. Growing up, the family and the church were central parts of her life. She was involved in the church with her mother and grandmother. During this time, one of Malcom’s major life events happened. On the night of Christmas of 1956, the Bethel Baptist Church was bombed. Experiencing the Civil Rights Movement through the church bombing and other events had a long-lasting influence on Malcom’s life. Another major event during Malcom’s childhood was the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957. Malcolm has always been a student who loves science and mathematics. The launch of Sputnik 1 inspired her to pursue a career in science.

Shirley M. Malcom currently serves as a Senior Advisor and Director of SEA Change at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Malcom is a trustee of Caltech, and a regent of Morgan State University. Malcom serves on the boards of the Heinz Endowments, Public Agenda, the National Math and Science Initiative and Digital Promise.

Early life and education
Malcom was born Shirley Mahaley on September 6, 1946 in Birmingham, Alabama to Ben and Lillie Mahaley. Malcom graduated from George Washington Carver High School at the age of 16 and left home to earn a B.S. with distinction in zoology at the University of Washington. She continued her education at the University of California at Los Angeles, receiving a M.S. in zoology in 1967. Afterwards, she taught high school students for a few years and later enrolled in the ecology program at Pennsylvania State University to earn a Ph.D. in 1974. Malcom returned to teaching for a year as assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and then moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a research associate at AAAS.

Malcom was amazed at the lack of the minorities and women in her classes and faculty members while in college. Because of this experience, she decided to take action by becoming the program manager for the Minority Institutions Science Improvement Program at the National Science Foundation in 1977. The program provided federal funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities for improved equipment and facilities as well as higher salaries for the faculty. In 1979, Malcom returned to AAAS as the head of the Office of Opportunities in Science.

Awards and honors
Dr. Malcom has received a variety of honors and awards, most notable was her election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the receipt of the 2003 Public Welfare Medal, the highest award presented by the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Malcom also holds 16 honorary degrees. On May 26, 2000 Dr. Malcom received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Publications
While working as a research associate at AAAS, where she surveyed science education programs designed for minority students, a conference was held which Malcom helped to organize. The result of this conference was a landmark report, co-authored by Malcom, entitled The Double Bind: The Price of Being a Minority Woman in Science (1976).

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the importance of diverse learning environments, but dismissed formulaic and points-based approaches to undergraduate admissions to achieve this diversity. In response in 2004, AAAS issued a report titled Standing Our Ground: A Guidebook for STEM Educators in the Post-Michigan Era, written by Shirley Malcom, which clarifies legally plausible options for preserving diversity in engineering and science programs.