Mrs. Padmaja Prasad was born to Smt. Champakavalli and Sri H R Gowri Shanker on 17th October 1957. She completed her BA from Maharaja’s College Mysuru in 1978 and her MA in Mass Communication and Journalism from Manasagangotri, University of Mysuru, in 1980. She got the Smt. Sumathi Srinivas gold medal for scoring the highest marks in Journalism. She married Mr. N N Prasad, an NRI hailing from Bengaluru, on 24th January 1988. The couple later settled in New York.
Padmaja participated in extra curricular activities during her college years. She had been active in New York Kannada Koota. She visited to India with her husband for the 70th birthday of her father-in-law. Mr. Prasad returned to New York on 14th December 1998, leaving her behind to return as scheduled after four weeks. Mrs. Prasad traveled to Mysuru to be with her father and sister, but on 29th December 1998, she died of cardiac failure while doing her morning puja. To cherish her memory, Mr. Prasad has set up the Padmaja Prasad Memorial Foundation.