Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Usha Chilukuri Vance, wife of Republican VP candidate J. D. Vance

Usha Vance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Usha Vance


Vance in 2023

Born
 
Usha Chilukuri

January 6, 1986 (age 38)
San Diego, California, U.S.

Education 


Political party 

Other political affiliations 
Democratic (before 2014)[1]

Spouse
J. D. Vance
​(m. 2014)​

Children 3


Usha Chilukuri Vance (née Chilukuri; born January 6, 1986) is an American lawyer. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Vance was a law clerk for multiple federal judges and Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh when he was serving on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and judge Amul Thapar of the Eastern District of Kentucky.[2] She is the wife of the junior United States Senator from Ohio, J. D. Vance,[3] who is Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Early life and education

Born in San Diego, California,[4] and raised in the upwardly mobile Rancho Peñasquitos suburb,[5] Usha Chilukuri is the daughter of Telugu-speaking Indian Hindu immigrants.[6] Her father, Krish, is a lecturer at San Diego State University's Department of Aerospace Engineering while her mother, Lakshmi, is a marine molecular biologist and biochemist, and current Provost of Sixth College at UC San Diego.[7][8] Her parents hail from Andhra Pradesh state of India.[9] Childhood friends described her as a "leader" and a "bookworm."[10]

She attended Yale University, graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history, with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She then attended Clare College, Cambridge, in England as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, receiving a Master of Philosophy degree in early modern history in 2010.[11] In 2013, she graduated Juris Doctor at Yale Law School, where she was the Executive Development Editor of the Yale Law Journal and Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.[12][13][14] During her time at Yale, she also taught American history as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.[13]

While at Yale Law School, Chilukuri met her future husband, J. D. Vance, a relationship encouraged by their professor Amy Chua.[15] In 2013, Chilukuri and Vance collaborated to organize a discussion group at Yale focused on the topic of "social decline in white America."[16]

Career

She served as a law clerk from 2014–2015 for then–District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh and from 2017–2018 for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.[17] She was admitted to the DC Bar in May 2019 and worked for the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, handling civil litigation and appeals in cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment and technology, until July 2024.[18]

She has served on the board of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association and as secretary of the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.[19]

Personal life

Chilukuri and J. D. Vance married in 2014 in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony.[20][10] They have three children: Ewan (born 2017), Vivek (born 2020), and Mirabel (born 2021).[21][22] She is a practicing Hindu and her husband is Roman Catholic.[20][23]

As of 2014, Chilukuri was a registered Democrat, but records show she pulled a Republican primary ballot in the 2022 election.[10]
Portrayal in media

In Hillbilly Elegy (2020), a film about the life of her husband, she was portrayed by actress Freida Pinto.

7/16/2024



P.S. 

Gates Cambridge Scholarship

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established the Gates Cambridge Scholarships in 2000 with a $210 million donation to support outstanding graduate students' study at the University of Cambridge.


No comments: