[1] Shubin is originally from Ukraine, the daughter of a criminologist and a lawyer; she is of Jewish descent on her father's side.
When she was ten, her family moved to Almaty in Kazakhstan, where her father had taken a university teaching position.
[2] After obtaining a letter of invitation from an Israeli, she was allowed to leave the Soviet Union, spent nine months in Austria, and then emigrated to the US in 1978, with support from the Tolstoy Foundation.
[4] Shubin is the coeditor of several books on mathematics: Her work developing math circles among the Navajo was featured in the documentary film Navajo Math Circles (2016), broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System.
The Navajo Todích’íí’nii (Bitter Water) clan have adopted her as a member.