Dr. Jill Biden
Jill Biden has been an educator for the past 29 years and continues to teach English classes at a DC-area community college. She is the wife of Vice President Joe Biden.
Jill has a long history of activism in her community and she continues to work to raise awareness on education, military families, and women’s health issues. Given her professional experience and passion, President Obama has asked Dr. Biden to help highlight the importance of America’s community colleges, and Dr. Biden frequently visits community colleges and speaks with students, parents, and teachers around the country as part of this outreach.
As a Blue Star Mom, Jill has made military families one of her top priorities. She has traveled to many bases in both the United States and in Germany to speak with soldiers and their families and try to raise awareness and show appreciation for the special sacrifices that these Americans make. In Delaware, she was active with a nonprofit organization called Delaware Boots on the Ground, which is dedicated to helping families during times of military deployment by organizing community events to raise awareness and support. An advocate of literacy and reading programs, she also helped found Book Buddies in 2007, a program that encourages reading among children from low-income families. In 1993, after four of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer, she started the Biden Breast Health Initiative, which in the past 16 years has educated more than 10,000 ninth-through-twelfth-grade girls in Delaware about the importance of early detection of breast cancer.
Prior to moving to Washington, Dr. Biden taught English for 15 years at Delaware Technical & Community College. Before that, she taught for 13 years in public schools as a reading specialist and English teacher, as well as working part-time with the Rockford Psychiatric Hospital Adolescent Program. In January 2007, Dr. Biden earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Delaware. Her dissertation focused on maximizing student retention in community colleges. She also has a Master's Degree in English from Villanova University (1987) and a Master's Degree in reading from West Chester University (1981) — both of which she earned while working full-time and raising a family.
The oldest of five sisters, Jill Jacobs was raised in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, by her mother, Bonny and Donald Jacobs, both of whom are now deceased. Jill was a student at the University of Delaware in 1975 when Joe Biden's brother arranged an introduction between her and then-Senator Biden. On June 17, 1977, they were married at the United Nations chapel in New York City. The Bidens have three children: Ashley, a social worker; Beau, Attorney General of the State of Delaware and a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard; and Hunter, a lawyer. She is the proud grandmother ("Nana") of Naomi, Finnegan, Roberta Mabel ("Maisy"), Natalie, and Robert Hunter.
