Mayim Bialik is no ordinary actress.

The former star of "Blossom" and current star of America's most popular sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" took 12 years off to raise her kids and, oh, get her Ph.D. in neuroscience.  She now plays a neuroscientist on TV, too.

She'll also be touting science and math education for women at a fundraiser for the Yeshiva Atlanta High School Sunday afternoon at Georgia Tech.

You can buy tickets here to see her for $36 apiece.

We talked with Bialik last month about her Atlanta connections and what inspired her to come to town:

Q: What drew you to this event?

Bialik: Honestly, I'm always looking for speaking engagements here. My best friend's here. Her older son and my younger son are the same age. They're buddies. I was with her in Atlanta when I heard I was nominated for an Emmy last year. This one also has the Jewish connection and it's about STEM education [which encourages kids to love science and math.] All things came together.

Q: What do you plan to talk about?

Bialik: I'll probably do something about how my science and entertainment worlds intersect. And I'll tie it in with my Jewish identity. I get a lot of questions about how I can be a person of faith and a person of science. I will talk about how  my study of science enriches my faith and my choice to be an observant Jew.

Q: If you go to the Georgia Tech campus, you'll see so many students from overseas. Does it worry you America isn't churning out enough science and math experts?

Bialik: I don't know if that's my specific worry. I'd like to turn it on its head. I think there's a tremendous amount of untapped information about the science field. A lot of cultural stereotyping about gender starts very young. It's our educational infrastructure. We have to overcome these structural impediments.

Q: Were you big on science and math when you were young?

Bialik: I was a late bloomer. I thought science was for boys and I wasn't cut out for it. But I had a biology tutor on the set of "Blossom" who introduced me into the world of science. She was a young dental student at UCLA. Now she's a dental surgeon with four kids of her own.

Q: What made you come back to acting after 12 years off?

Bialik: Any time you close one door, you open another. I didn't automatically take a post-doc position and now my stock in the science world has plummeted. I taught for five years. I have kept up to some extent but the choice I made was largely to be around my kids in their formative years. I could not do that in academia. With "The Big Bang Theory," I don't work every day. I don't work summers and weekends. Their demands are different. I wanted to nurse my kids on demand for their first year of their life and I couldn't do that as a research professor.

Q: How do you think your character Amy has evolved over the seasons?

Bialik: A lot of it is the writers getting more comfortable with the character, trusting the audience to tolerate changes. It's all about them, little to do with me.

Q: Will Sheldon and Amy ever consummate or even kiss passionately?

Bialik: There are some big episodes coming up. The second to last episode has some moments that address that.

Q: Realistically, do you think Penny and Amy would ever be friends?

Bialik: I don't know. My best friend and I are not a lot alike in a lot of ways. But there are enough things we enjoy doing together and being a part of that makes us besties. I think anything is really possible.

Q: As a woman with a PhD in neuroscience, is it surreal to be playing one on TV?

Bialik: It's fun. It's a great opportunity to put a positive face and a public face on female scientists. I think it makes it convenient because I can memorize my lines easier.

Q: It's now been eight months since your car accident. How's your hand?

Bialik: I'm still recovering. I had a very very significant accident. It's taking a long time. I don't have full strength in the hand.

Q: How come the show decided not to incorporate it into the script?

Bialik: I went to work the next day and left it up to the writers to make that decision. We chose to hide it. Fortunately, it's not a very active show.

Q: So it's going to be awhile before we see you playing the harp again, eh?

Bialik: I'm hoping next season I can play it again.

Q: You wrote a book on attachment parenting. Any more books on the horizon?

Bialik: I'm working on a vegan cookbook. It's set to come out in February. I'm done with my chapters.

Q: Why vegan cooking?

Bialik: I kept getting asked. I write a lot on Kveller [her blog] about what I cook.

A talk

Mayim Bialik

2 p.m. Sunday.

$36. Georgia Tech Scheller School of Business, 800 West Peachtree St., Atlanta.

770-451-5299, www.yeshivaatlanta.org .