Her father, Innocencio Monteiro, was a Brigadier in the Indian Army while her mother, Sophia,[2] was a mathematics and French teacher.
[3] Following the graduation she applied to the University of Maryland, College Park from which in 1972 she received her Ph.D.[4] A year later she returned to India and was appointed as an assistant professor at the Centre for Automation at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and worked there till retirement.
In 2002 she was a co-editor of CRC Press, along with Y. N. Srikant and also served on leadership board of the Resonance, a peer reviewed journal of India.
[3] In 2007, Shankar received the Jaya Jayant award for teaching excellence and between 2006 and 2009 she was named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
[2] The Priti Shankar Library of Popular Math and Science is housed in the UMED building of the Navnirmiti Learning Foundation.