Usha Vance
Vance in 2023
Born	Usha Chilukuri (1986-01-06) January 6, 1986 (age 38) San Diego County, California, U.S. [1]
Education	Yale University ( BA, JD) Clare College, Cambridge ( MPhil)
Political party	Democratic (as late as 2014) Republican (as early as 2022)
Spouse	J. D. Vance ​ ( m. 2014)​
Children	3

Usha Chilukuri Vance ( née Chilukuri; born January 6, 1986) is an American lawyer.

After graduating from Yale Law School, Vance was a law clerk for multiple federal judges, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Judge Amul Thapar. ^[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. If Vance is elected as Vice President, she would become the first woman of Indian descent to serve as Second Lady of the United States. ^[4]

Early life and education

Born in the San Diego, California area ^[5] and raised in the upper-middle-class Rancho Peñasquitos suburb, ^[6] Usha Chilukuri is the daughter of Telugu-speaking Indian Hindu immigrants. ^[7] 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 Provost of Sixth College at UC San Diego. ^{[8] [9]} Her parents hail from the Andhra Pradesh state of India. ^[10] Childhood friends described her as a "leader" and a "bookworm." ^[11]

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. ^[12] 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. ^{[13] [14] [15]} During her time at Yale, she also taught American history as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. ^[14]

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. ^[16] 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. ^[17]

She has served on the board of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association and as secretary of the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. ^[18]

Personal life

While at Yale Law School, Chilukuri met her future husband, J. D. Vance, a relationship encouraged by their professor Amy Chua. ^[19] Vance described Chilukuri as his "Yale spirit guide" because she was a critical source of support and encouragement in his academic and professional life. ^[20] Chua has described their relationship as “extremely unlikely, almost opposites of personality.” ^[21] In 2013, Chilukuri and Vance collaborated to organize a discussion group at Yale focused on the topic of "social decline in white America." ^[22]

Chilukuri and J. D. Vance married in 2014 in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony. ^{[23] [11]} They have three children. ^{[24] [25]} She is a practicing Hindu, and her husband is a Christian. ^{[23] [26]} (He was raised Evangelical but converted to Catholicism in 2019. ^[27])

According to public records, Chilukuri voted in Democratic primaries as recently as 2014, but she voted in the 2022 Republican primary, in which her husband was a candidate. ^{[11] [28]} Beyond that, her party affiliation and political philosophy are unclear. Although she clerked for conservative judges, including John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, she also practiced at a California law firm that describes its work culture as "radically progressive." ^[29]

Portrayal in media

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

References