Usha Vance

Usha Bala Chilukuri Vance (née Chilukuri; born January 6, 1986) is an American lawyer who has been the second lady of the United States since 2025, being married to Vice President JD Vance. A former trial lawyer, she has clerked with justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. She is the first Indian American second lady.

Vance was born in San Diego County, California, to Telugu Indian immigrant parents and raised in an upper-middle-class suburb. She graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in history and from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor degree. After law school, she served as a law clerk for several senior federal judges, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Judge Amul Thapar.

In 2019, Vance was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, and she subsequently worked for a law firm handling civil litigation and appeals in cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology. She resigned from her law firm job in July 2024. At the 2024 Republican National Convention, Vance delivered the introductory address for her husband, JD Vance. She often traveled with him to his vice-presidential campaign events, occasionally appearing onstage. The couple has three children.

Early life and education

Usha Bala Chilukuri was born on January 6, 1986 in a suburb of San Diego County, California, to Lakshmi (née Yechuri) and Radhakrishna "Krish" Chilukuri, both Telugu Indian immigrants who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s from Andhra Pradesh. Her father is a mechanical engineer from IIT Madras and a lecturer at San Diego State University, and her mother is a molecular biologist and provost at the University of California, San Diego. She was raised in San Diego's upper-middle-class Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood.

In 2003, Vance graduated from Mt. Carmel High School, where she performed on flute in the marching band. She has one sister, Shreya. Childhood friends described her as a "leader" and a "bookworm". She attended Yale University, graduating ''summa cum laude'' in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in history, with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. During her time at Yale, Vance volunteered in local elementary schools, served as a Girl Scouts troop leader, and became the editor-in-chief of ''Our Education'', an education policy publication. After graduating, she taught English and American history as a Yale–China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Vance then attended Clare College, Cambridge, in England, as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, receiving a Master of Philosophy in early modern history in 2010.

In 2013, Vance obtained her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where she was the executive development editor of the ''Yale Law Journal,'' managing editor of the '' Yale Journal of Law & Technology'', and an editor of the ''Yale Law & Policy Review''. During her time at Yale Law, she participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, and the Pro Bono Network. Her husband has called her "brilliant" and "way more accomplished than I am".

Career

Vance served as a law clerk for Judge Amul Thapar of the District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2013 to 2014, Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2014 to 2015, and Chief Justice John Roberts from 2017 to 2018. During her clerkship at the Supreme Court, she was assigned to work on '' Azar v. Garza'', a case regarding a juvenile undocumented immigrant in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who sought to have an abortion.

Vance worked for the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson for its San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices as an associate for almost six years, handling civil litigation and appeals in cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment and technology, until July 2024, when she resigned "to focus on caring for our family". Among her clients were the Paramount Pictures, Regents of the University of California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and a division of The Walt Disney Company. Vance previously worked as a summer associate at Williams & Connolly, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, and Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz. She was admitted to the District of Columbia, California and Ohio bar.

Second Lady of the United States (2025–present)

At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Usha Vance delivered the introductory address for her husband, JD Vance. Since then, she has been an advisor to her husband, and often travels with him to campaign events, occasionally appearing onstage with him. According to some sources, she helped her husband prepare for the 2024 vice-presidential debate. JD Vance was declared the winner of the debate by several columnists, including some from ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', and ''Los Angeles Times''. Usha Vance also received some credit for her husband's debate performance.

In November 2024, as JD Vance became the vice president-elect of the United States, Usha Vance assumed the role of ''Second Lady of the United States Designate''. In January 2025, she became the first Indian American, first Telugu, and first Hindu Second Lady, while in a broader classification also being the first Asian American in this role.

Several political analysts have noted that Vance has played a key role in her husband's political career. In February 2025, Vance accompanied her husband on a visit to France and Germany. In the same month, President Trump appointed Usha Vance to serve as a member of the board of trustees of John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In March 2025, Vance was selected to lead the United States presidential delegation to Italy for the 2025 Special Olympics World Winter Games.

In March 2025, she went on a visit to Greenland, which caused a diplomatic spat. Prime minister Mute Egede called the visit "a provocation", and said she is not welcome in Greenland, noting that "until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working very closely, but that time is over." The government condemned the visit as "highly aggressive." The Greenland government has accused the United States of foreign interference in its affairs. Usha Vance had been invited by American Daybreak, a group led by Tom Dans, who was an Arctic commissioner in the first Trump administration.

Politics

According to public records, in 2014 Chilukuri voted in the Democratic primaries, and was registered as an independent in 2017, but in 2022, she voted in the Republican primary in which her husband was a candidate. She clerked for conservative judges, such as Roberts and Kavanaugh, but has also practiced at a California law firm with a progressive work culture. According to ''The New York Times'', her political views seem to have changed over the years, as in 2021, she made a political contribution to national conservative Blake Masters in his campaign to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate.

Public image and style

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

In July 2024, after Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate, ''The New York Times'' reported that Usha Vance "models a new kind of Republican image-making". ''Newsweek'' said Vance's fashion choices were "different from that of the typical women in Trump's circle, who take on a Miss America type of look". U.S. fashion media widely praised her fashion choices at the 2025 presidential inauguration.

White supremacists, including prominent far-right figures such as Nick Fuentes and Jaden McNeil, have made racist comments about Vance, targeting her for her Indian heritage. JD Vance defended his wife against the "ridiculous" attacks in an interview with ABC News.

Personal life

While at Yale Law School, Usha Chilukuri met her future husband, JD Vance, a relationship encouraged by their professor Amy Chua. Chua has called their relationship "extremely unlikely, almost opposites of personality". In 2013, Chilukuri and Vance collaborated to organize a discussion group at Yale focused on "social decline in white America". Vance often called Chilukuri his "Yale spirit guide".

Chilukuri and Vance married on June 14, 2014 in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony, her husband's friend Jamil Jivani read from the Bible and a Hindu pandit blessed the couple. She is a practicing Hindu, and her husband a Christian who was raised Evangelical but converted to Catholicism in 2019. Usha Vance is a vegetarian. At the 2024 Republican National Convention, she said her husband has "adapted to my vegetarian diet and learned to cook food from my mother—Indian food." The Vances reside in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three children.
Vance is a trustee of the Washington National Opera. Previously, she served on the board of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association and as secretary of the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Family background

Usha Vance's parents are Telugu Kammas from the West Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. Her paternal ancestry can be traced to Chilukuri Buchipapayya Sastri (), who lived in Saipuram in Vuyyuru mandal of Krishna district. A branch of her family later migrated to Vadluru near Tanuku in West Godavari district. Usha's mother, Lakshmi, is from Pamarru in Krishna district.

Vance is related to Indian academics. Usha's paternal grandfather, Chilukuri Rama Sastri, taught physics at IIT Madras, and the institute now runs a student award in his memory. Her great-aunt Chilukuri Santhamma, who has never met Vance, resides in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, teaches physics at a private university, and has written an English interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu sacred text.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vance, Usha
1986 births
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American women lawyers
21st-century Hindus
Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge
American Hindus
American people of Telugu descent
Asian conservatism in the United States
JD Vance
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Lawyers from San Diego
Living people
People associated with Munger, Tolles & Olson
People associated with the 2024 United States presidential election
Spouses of Ohio politicians
Mt. Carmel High School (San Diego) alumni
Yale Law School alumni
Second ladies and gentlemen of the United States
Telugu people