J.D. Vance's wife, Usha Chirukuri Vance, is a Yale Law School graduate and attorney.
WASHINGTON — Yale Law graduate and litigation attorney Usha Chirukuri Vance was thrust into the spotlight this week after her husband, J.D. Vance, was selected as Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Chilukuri Vance, 38, grew up in San Diego to parents who were Indian immigrants. Her mother is a biologist and dean at the University of California, San Diego, and her father is an engineer, according to the JD Vance campaign. She received her bachelor's degree from Yale University and her master's in philosophy from Cambridge University through the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
After graduating from Cambridge, she studied law at Yale University, where she met her husband. In her 2016 autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance wrote that the two met through a class assignment and that she quickly “fell in love” with her writing partner.
“Usha's presence made me feel at home in a place that has always seemed a little foreign,” he wrote.
The two graduated in 2013 and married the following year.
After graduating from law school, Chilukuri Vance clerked for one year for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who was an appeals court judge in Washington, and then clerked for one year for Chief Justice John Roberts.
She later became a litigation attorney with Munger, Torres & Olson, a law firm with offices in San Francisco and Washington. Chilukuri Vance left the law firm shortly after her husband was selected as Trump's running mate.
“Usha has informed us that she has decided to leave the firm,” Munger, Torres & Olson said in a statement. “Usha is an outstanding attorney and colleague, and we thank her for her many years of service and wish her all the best in her future career.”
Chirukuri Vance did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday, according to a spokesman for J.D. Vance's campaign.
In his memoir, Vance credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.
“I am a delayed outburst at the best of times. I can defuse it, but it takes skill and precision,” Vance wrote. “Not only have I learned to control myself, but Usha has learned how to control me.”
Voter records show that as of 2022, Chilculi Vance was registered as a Republican in Ohio and voted in that year's Republican primary, the same election in which her husband ran in the Republican Senate primary.
JD and Usha Vance live in Cincinnati and have three children: Euan, Vivec, and Mirabelle. Outside of work, he served on the board of directors of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from September 2020 to July 2023.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
