THE ADMINISTRATION • DR. JILL BIDEN

DR. JILL BIDEN

Dr. Jill Biden has been an educator in Delaware's schools for more than 25 years. She is the wife of Vice President Joe Biden.

For the last 15 years, Dr. Biden has been teaching English full-time 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 1993, after four of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer, she started the Biden Breast Health Initiative, which in the past 15 years has educated more than 7,000 ninth-through-twelfth-grade girls in Delaware about proper breast health.

As a Blue-Star Mom, Dr. Biden has made issues important to military families one of her top priorities and has been very active with a nonprofit organization called Delaware Boots on the Ground. Boots on the Ground is dedicated to helping families during times of military deployment and organizes community events to help raise awareness and support. An avid 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 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, Dr. Biden was raised in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, by her mother, Bonny (dec.), and father, Donald.

Dr. Biden 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.

Dr. and Vice President Biden have three children: Ashley, a social worker; Beau, Attorney General of the State of Delaware and a captain in the Delaware National Guard; and Hunter, a lawyer. She is the proud grandmother ("Nana") of Naomi, Finnegan, Roberta Mabel ("Maisy"), Natalie, and Robert Hunter.