Who is Maya Harris? Highlights from her DNC speech : NPR

The NPR Network will be reporting live from Chicago throughout the week bringing you the latest on the Democratic National Convention.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris often speaks of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, as someone who encouraged her and helped inspire her trajectory.

Harris’ younger sister, Maya Harris, one of the vice president’s closest confidants, again mentioned their mother on this historic night. At one point she seemed to be getting emotional at wondering what Gopalan would say at seeing her eldest daughter accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

“I could just see her smiling saying how proud she is of Kamala,” she said. “And then, without missing a beat, she’d say, ‘That’s enough. You have work to do.'”

Like her sister, Maya Harris is a lawyer, and served as a senior policy adviser for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign’s policy agenda. Harris also served as campaign chairperson of her sister’s 2020 presidential campaign.

She also previously served as the vice president of democracy, rights and justice, and an officer of the philanthropic foundation, the Ford Foundation. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School.