Jill Biden

Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden (born June 3, 1951) is an American educator who has been the first lady of the United States since 2021 as the wife of President Joe Biden. She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, Biden has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is believed to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a salaried position during her husband's tenure. She has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Delaware, master's degrees in education and English from West Chester University and Villanova University, and returned to the University of Delaware for a doctoral degree in education. She taught English and reading in high schools for thirteen years and instructed adolescents with emotional disabilities at a psychiatric hospital. Then, for fifteen years, she was an English and writing instructor at Delaware Technical & Community College. Born in Hammonton, New Jersey, she grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. She married Joe Biden in 1977, becoming the stepmother of Beau and Hunter, two sons from Joe Biden's first marriage. Biden and her husband also have a daughter together, Ashley Biden, born in 1981. She is the founder of the Biden Breast Health Initiative non-profit organization, co-founder of the Book Buddies program, co-founder of the Biden Foundation, is active in Delaware Boots on the Ground, and with Michelle Obama is co-founder of Joining Forces. She has published a memoir and two children's books. Jill Tracy Jacobs was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey. She is the oldest of five sisters. Her father, Donald Carl Jacobs, was a bank teller and U.S. Navy signalman during World War II who used the G.I. Bill to attend business school and then worked his way up in the banking field. His family name had been Giacoppo (or some variation thereof); before his father, and others in the family, had emigrated from the Sicilian village of Gesso in Italy.