Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American lawyer an the wife of Illinois senator Barack Obama. She was born and grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and she was educated at Princeton University and Harvard Law School. After completing her formal education, she returned to Chicago and went to work for the law firm Sidley Austin, on the staff of the Mayor of Chicago Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Hospitals. She is the sister of Craig Robinson, men's basketball coach at Oregon State University.