Michelle Obama.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born on January 17, 1964, to Fraser Robinson III and Marian Shields Robinson. Her father worked as a city pump operator while her mother stayed home to raise Michelle and her older brother Craig. Attending Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, she excelled academically and went on to Princeton University, earning a B.A. in Sociology in 1985. She then earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988.

After law school, Michelle Obama joined the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, where she met Barack Obama in 1989. She later worked in the nonprofit sector as executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies. At the University of Chicago, she served as associate dean of Student Services and vice president for Community and External Affairs at the medical center. In 2008, she campaigned for her husband’s presidential bid, delivering a keynote at the Democratic National Convention. As First Lady from 2009 to 2017, she launched initiatives like Let’s Move! to combat childhood obesity and Reach Higher to encourage college education. She also became a fashion icon, frequently wearing designers like Jason Wu and Narciso Rodriguez.

Michelle married Barack Obama on October 3, 1992, after meeting at Sidley Austin. They have two daughters, Malia born July 4, 1998 and Sasha born June 10, 2001, both conceived through IVF after she suffered a miscarriage. Her mother Marian Robinson lived part-time at the White House during their tenure, the first presidential in-law to do so since Mamie Eisenhower’s mother. She has described her close relationship with her brother Craig, a basketball coach, and counts Stevie Wonder among her favorite artists.

Michelle Obama’s influence extends well beyond her tenure as First Lady. She is the first African-American woman to hold the role and remained a top public figure, topping Gallup’s most admired woman poll in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Her memoir Becoming released in 2018 became a worldwide bestseller, and she won a Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording for its audiobook version in 2020. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She continues to advocate for girls’ education through the Obama Foundation’s Global Girls Alliance.