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Meet Usha Vance, child of Indian immigrants and Trump VP pick J.D. Vance’s lawyer wife

  • The graduate of Yale Law School, where she met her husband, has worked for US Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts

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Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, kisses his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance as they arrive on the floor during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Monday, July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Usha Chilukuri Vance, Yale law graduate and trial lawyer, was thrust into the spotlight this week after her husband, J.D. Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

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Chilukuri Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego, by Indian immigrants. Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to JD Vance’s campaign.

She received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.

After Cambridge, she met her husband back at Yale, where the two studied law. In his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.

“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.

Republican US vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance arrive on the floor during the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday. Photo: AP
Republican US vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance arrive on the floor during the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday. Photo: AP

They graduated in 2013 and wed the following year.

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