Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic

Patricia Shoer was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Her father, Irving Shoer, was the son of Latvian immigrants and her mother, Jenny Pearl, was a Ukrainian immigrant from Ostroh (which was an occupied land by the Russian Empire at the time). She grew up in Peabody, Massachusetts and attended Peabody High School. Goldman-Rakic earned her bachelor's degree cum laude in neurobiology from Vassar in 1959, and her doctorate from the University of California at Los Angeles in experimental Developmental Psychology in 1963.

After postdoctoral positions at UCLA and New York University, Goldman-Rakic worked at the National Institute of Mental Health in neuropsychology starting in 1965 and later as Chief of Developmental Neurobiology from 1975-1979. She moved to Yale School of Medicine in 1979 where she remained until her death. She was The Eugene Higgins Professor of Neuroscience in the neurobiology department with joint appointments in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and psychology. In 1988 she was granted a five-year, $6 million grant to establish the Center for Neuroscience Research at Yale.

Goldman-Rakic had two sisters, Dr. Ruth Rappaport, her identical twin, and Dr. Linda Faith Schoer. She was married to Dr. Lawrence Goldman. She re-married Pasko Rakic, also a neuroscientist, in 1979.