Caroline Kennedy

Biography

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving as the United States Ambassador to Australia since 2022. Kennedy previously served in the Obama administration as the United States ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She is a member of the Kennedy family and the only surviving child of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Less than a month before Caroline's third birthday, her father won the 1960 presidential election. She spent her early childhood years in the White House during his presidency, and was almost six when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The following year, she and her brother John F. Kennedy Jr. moved with their mother Jacqueline to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Caroline attended grade school. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University and worked at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg. She later earned a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School. Most of Kennedy's professional life has been in law, politics, education reform, and charitable work. She has also acted as a spokesperson for her family's legacy, especially that of her father, and co-authored two books with Ellen Alderman on civil liberties. Early in the primary race for the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy and her uncle, Ted Kennedy, endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama. She later stumped for him in Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, served as co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee, and addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.