Share on Facebook

Jill Biden Biography

Political Relative

Photos ( See all 17 )

Name at birth: Jill Tracy Jacobs

Dr. Jill Biden is a college English professor and the wife of U.S. vice president Joe Biden. She was still a student at the University of Delaware when she met Joe Biden in 1975; they were married two years later and had a daughter together, Ashley, in 1981. A multitasking mom, Jill Biden raised Ashley along with Biden's two sons from his first marriage while also going to graduate school and teaching high school. (The Bidens lived in Delaware, with Joe Biden commuting by train daily from Washington, D.C.) She has four degrees in all: a bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware (1975), master's degrees from West Chester University (1981) and Villanova University (1987), and a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware (2007). In 1993 she began teaching English at Delaware Technical and Community College, where she was still teaching in 2008 when Joe Biden was elected vice president as the running mate of Democratic presidential Barack Obama. Obama and Biden took office on 20 January 2009. Jill Biden has said that she would like to continue teaching in the Washington, D.C. area, but has not yet taken a job.

Extra credit: The Bidens were married on 17 June 1977. It was the second marriage for both: Jill Biden had a brief early marriage, according to a 2008 article in The New York Times, and Joe Biden's first wife Neilia and daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash in 1972. Joe Biden also has two sons from that first marriage: Joseph R. Biden III (called "Beau," b. 1969) and Hunter (b. 1970).