When her husband became president of the United States on January 20, 2021, Dr. Jill Biden became the nation’s First Lady. Through Joe Biden’s long political career, Dr. Biden maintained her own career as an English professor teaching primarily in community colleges. The Bidens stood out in the Washington political world for their more-than-40-year marriage and their devotion to family. 

Jill Tracy Jacobs was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey, and grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. She was the eldest of five sisters. Her father served in World War II and then became a banker. She graduated from Upper Moreland High School in 1969. 

Jill married Bill Stevenson in 1970, and they divorced in 1975, the same year that she graduated from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in English. She later earned two master’s degrees: one in reading from West Chester University in 1981 and another in English from Villanova University in 1987. In 2007, she received her PhD from the University of Delaware in educational leadership. Her dissertation was titled, “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students' Needs.”

Jill met Joe Biden in 1975, three years after a car crash killed his first wife and daughter and injured his sons, Beau and Hunter. Joe’s brother introduced them, and although Joe was nearly nine years older than Jill, they had an instant connection. In his memoir, Promises to Keep, Biden noted that Jill embraced the Biden family, and Beau and Hunter adored her, prompting the boys to advise their father: “We think we should marry Jill.” They were married on June 17, 1977, at the United Nations Chapel in New York City with Beau and Hunter standing with them at the altar. Their daughter Ashley was born in 1981. 

A life-long educator, Jill Biden began her teaching career in public high schools in Delaware and then worked at the Delaware Technical and Community College from 1993 to 2008. She was able to continue teaching in Delaware while her husband served in the Senate because he returned home most evenings to Delaware from Washington, DC. 

When Joe Biden became vice president to President Barack Obama, the Bidens moved to the VP’s residence in Northwest Washington. In 2009, Jill Biden began teaching English at the Northern Virginia Community College. She was the first Second Lady (wife of the vice president) and the first First Lady to continue working full time in her profession while her husband was in office.

As First and Second Lady, Jill focused much of her time and energy on causes important to her, including advocating for cancer research and community colleges. Together with First Lady Michelle Obama (2009-2017), Jill Biden started the Joining Forces initiative to support service members, veterans, and their families. 

After the death of Beau Biden in 2015 of brain cancer, Joe Biden announced that he would not run for president in 2016. The Bidens created the Biden Foundation and the Biden Cancer Initiative, but both organizations suspended operations after Joe Biden announced in 2019 that he would run for president. 

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Jill campaigned for her husband and served as one of his closest advisors. The Democratic National Convention in August 2020 was a mostly virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic and was structured to appeal to voters watching on television at home. Jill spoke from an empty classroom at Brandywine High School, where she had once taught. In her speech, she focused on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education and highlighted her devotion to her family through its personal tragedies and successes. 

Despite continuing her teaching career as First Lady, Dr. Biden found time to engage in activities common to other women who preceded her in that role. Moving into the White House at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she became a staunch advocate of vaccination against the deadly virus. She traveled to forty states, often to visit American service members and their families. Her journeys around the world took her to Japan, Africa (five times), Europe, and the Middle East. She engaged in “soft power” diplomacy, including a visit with Mrs. Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s First Lady, after the February 2022 invasion of that sovereign country by Russia. A defender of women’s rights and causes, Dr. Biden collaborated with federal government agencies and councils to bolster gender equality. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she called the decision voiding a national right to abortion “unjust and so devastating.”

Jill also devoted many hours to supporting the White House Historical Association (WHHA), a private, non-profit organization founded by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to preserve the Executive Mansion and its history. Dr. Biden hosted state dinners with her husband and receptions at the White House, especially around the winter holidays, where she welcomed revelers with her warm remarks. She was particularly proud for her and the president to hold their granddaughter Naomi’s November 2022 wedding on the South Lawn. In fall 2024, Jill held an outdoor reception to mark the opening of the WHHA’s “People’s House” museum at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, which gives visitors an expanded White House experience with interactive exhibits. She also revamped and modernized public tours of the Executive Mansion to make visits to the iconic home more detailed and meaningful.

When President Biden indicated that he would run for a second term in the 2024 presidential election, Jill prepared to play a large role as her husband seemed to age rapidly in his early 80s, while she maintained her characteristic energy. Yet, after his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate with former president Donald Trump in June 2024, pressure mounted for Biden to step out of the race. Although disappointed by Democratic leaders’ turning against her husband, she gracefully exited the White House with Joe upon Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Just three months later, President Biden announced a diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones. The Bidens faced that fight as the steadfast couple they had been for more than four decades.

Dr. Biden is the author of three books: Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops (2012), Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself (2019), and Joey: The Story of Joe Biden (2020).