Richa Moorjani

Moorjani's family lives in Saratoga, California. She attended Saratoga High School (California) and the University of California, Davis, where she majored in communications with a minor in Dramatic Arts. She graduated in 2011.^[1]

Moorjani's family managed a Bollywood music band.^[2]

Her father is Bhojpuri, from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India and her mother is a Kannadiga, from Karnataka, India.^[3]

Moorjani's early years as an actress saw her playing guest roles in several television shows including The Mindy Project (directed by Mindy Kaling), NCIS: Los Angeles and 9-1-1. She also voice-acted in Fallout 76, a 2018 online action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.

Between 2020 and 2023, Moorjani portrayed one of the lead characters in Netflix original series Never Have I Ever, which was also co-written by Kaling. She auditioned for Never Have I Ever through an open casting call.^[4] Richa plays main character Devi's cousin, Kamala Nandiawada, in the series. As of 2020^[update], Kamala is a PhD student in biology at Caltech.^[5] Speaking on playing a woman of color in STEM, she tells The Hindu, "I learned about how much women of color in STEM go through. It's a real systemic problem where their names are taken off research papers.".^[6]

As of late-2021, Moorjani's next project Broken Drawer, directed by Rippin Sindher, has been in post-production. The film is loosely inspired by true events, following a young Sikh mother who was killed while working at her family-owned convenience store in rural California. "Rippin called me and told me how special this role was to her, being based on her mother, and that she couldn't see anyone playing it but me. It turned out to be such a lovely and fulfilling experience," Moorjani told The Hindu.^[6]