Background
Raikhel, the daughter of a surgeon and an X-Ray technician, grew up in Leningrad in the Soviet Union.
Raikhel, the daughter of a surgeon and an X-Ray technician, grew up in Leningrad in the Soviet Union.
After transferring to a regular high school from the music conservatory, she studied various sciences throughout each day into the evening, finally earning high enough scores to attend Leningrad University to study biology. She graduated in 1970 with her master"s degree and went on to receive her Doctor of Philosophy from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1975.
From a young age she was cultivated to become a concert pianist until a teacher dissuaded her during her final year of high school from pursuing music as a career. Due to their Jewish heritage, they obtained permission to emigrate shortly before the Soviet border closed for the last time concurrent with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the help of University of Georgia professor Jerry Paulin, who had temporarily worked alongside in Leningrad in the late 1970s, and her family emigrated to Rome and then to Georgia in 1979 as political refugees.
Shortly after arriving started her post-doctoral work at University of Georgia, concluding in 1984 when she was hired by the University as an assistant research scientist in their botany department.
Beginning in 1986, she taught at Michigan State University"s East Lansing campus as an assistant professor of botany. She was advanced to full professor in 1994.
In 1989, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and received treatment for eight years before the cancer went into remission. In 1996 was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for the study of plant sciences.
In 2001, the family moved to University of California, Riverside (UCR) where she teaches plant cell biology.
In 2012 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for "pioneering the use of novel genetic and biochemical techniques to elucidate the organization and function of the secretory system in plant cells." She holds the Ernst and Helen Leibacher Endowed Chair in Plant Molecular, Cell Biology & Genetics at UCR. She is the founding director of UCR"s Center for Plant Cell Biology and the current director of UCR"s Institute for Integrative Genome Biology.
Member of International Society for Plant Molecular Biology (board directors 2001), American Society for Plant Physiologists (member publication committee 1992-1993, member executive committee 1996-1999), American Society for Cell Biology (program committee member 1998—2000).