2. Mayim Bialik

Talk about an accomplished person! Mayim Bialik, 39, is a Hollywood actress, earning close to $100,000 an episode as Amy Farrah Fowler on the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, where she plays a neurobiologist, and in real life holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA, which she earned in 2007.

As an undergraduate, Bialik majored in neuroscience, Hebrew and Jewish studies at UCLA after turning down offers from Harvard and Yale.

Bialik is also a published author (scientific papers excluded) who abandoned her career in research to focus on acting, and in turn spend more time with her two sons.

Bialik explained her move, “I’m glad that I completed my PhD and I’m very proud of it, but the life of a research professor would not have suited my needs in terms of what kind of parenting I wanted to do.”