Ketanji Brown Jackson

Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson (née Brown; /kəˈtɑːndʒi/ kə-TAHN-jee; born September 14, 1970) is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. From 2021 to 2022, Jackson was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida. She received her undergraduate and legal education at Harvard University, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat she later assumed on the Supreme Court. From 2010 to 2014, Jackson was the vice chairwoman of the United States Sentencing Commission. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed her as a district judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where she served until 2021. Since 2016, Jackson has been a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers.