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Michelle Obama Biography

U.S. First Lady

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Name at birth: Michelle LaVaughn Robinson

Michelle Obama is the wife of U.S. president Barack Obama. She is also a lawyer and a former Chicago city administrator and community outreach worker. Reared in a blue-collar home on Chicago's South Side, she was an associate at a law firm when she met Obama; he was a summer intern and she was assigned to advise him. She has worked in the offices of Chicago's mayor and its planning commission, headed a career-training program for young adults and directed community affairs for the University of Chicago and its medical center. She caught the eye of a national audience at her husband's side after he delivered a high-profile speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and then was elected that year to the U.S. Senate. In 2007 she scaled back her own professional work to attend to family and campaign obligations during Obama's run for president. She took her turn as a speaker on the opening night of the 2008 Democratic convention, and her husband was elected president on 4 November 2008. She became First Lady with his inauguration on 20 January 2009.

Extra credit: She is a 1985 graduate of Princeton University. Her brother, Craig Robinson, class of 1983, was a basketball star there and is now a college coach... Although she's younger than Barack Obama, she graduated from Harvard Law School first, in 1988. She didn't cross paths there with her future husband, who graduated in 1991... The Obamas were married in 1992 and have two daughters, Malia (born 1998) and Natasha (called Sasha, born 2001).

For more election-year profiles, visit our loop on Candidates 2008.

Blog posts mentioning Michelle Obama:

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• Our First Couple Is Taller Than Your First Couple
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• Obama Arrives for Haunted Honeymoon
• "My Fellow Americans, God Bless America"
• Michelle Obama's Inaugural Outfits
• Doll Trouble at the White House
• President Barack Obama By the Numbers
• OK, Daddy's President-Elect -- Now Go to School
• New Obama Code Names: Mustang and Malibu
• The First Brother-In-Law's New Gig
• Dopiest Secret Code Names Ever?
• The Tricky Birthdays of the Obama Girls
• Michelle Obama's Convention Speech
• Wife Pounds Obama
• First Lady or 'First Laddy'?