Nicole Shanahan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nicole Shanahan
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Shanahan in 2024
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Nicole Ann Shanahan
September 26, 1985 |
| Education | University of Puget Sound (BA) Santa Clara University (JD) |
| Political party | Independent (2024–present) |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | 1 |
Nicole Ann Shanahan (born September 26, 1985) is an American lawyer and businessperson from Silicon Valley. She was the running mate for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his 2024 campaign for president.
Born in California, Shanahan earned degrees from the University of Puget Sound and the Santa Clara University School of Law. She worked in the legal field before starting her own technology company. She also spent time as a fellow at Stanford Law School, studying how technology impacts law.
Shanahan was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin from 2018 to 2023. She is reported to have a net worth of over $1 billion. In 2019, she started a private foundation called Bia-Echo. The foundation supports research to help women have children later in life.
In March 2024, Kennedy chose Shanahan to be his vice-presidential running mate. Shanahan has raised questions about the safety and effectiveness of some vaccines.
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Early Life and Education
Nicole Ann Shanahan was born on September 26, 1985, in Placer County, California. She grew up in Oakland, California. Her mother was an immigrant from China who worked as an accountant, and her father was a computer specialist. Shanahan has said she had a difficult childhood.
She went to high school at Saint Mary's College High School in Berkeley, California. For college, she attended the University of Puget Sound in Washington state. She graduated in 2007 with a degree in Asian studies, economics, and Mandarin Chinese.
After college, Shanahan worked as a paralegal (a person who assists lawyers) and a patent specialist. She then went to Santa Clara University School of Law and earned her law degree in 2014.
Career in Law and Business
While in law school, Shanahan studied in Singapore and became interested in patent law. A patent is a right that protects an invention. After becoming a lawyer, she started a company called ClearAccessIP, which used technology to help with patent management. She sold the company in 2020.
Shanahan has often spoken about how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the legal world. She was a fellow at CodeX, a center at Stanford Law School that studies legal technology.
She was also an executive producer for the movies Kiss The Ground and Evolver. Shanahan serves on the boards of several companies, including Carbon Royalty Corp and the Sloomoo Institute.
Bia-Echo Foundation
In 2018, Shanahan helped start the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality. This center is part of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
A year later, in 2019, she started her own foundation, Bia-Echo. A foundation is an organization that gives money to support specific causes. Bia-Echo was named after the ancient Greek goddess of energy. The foundation's main goal is to fund research into "reproductive longevity," which aims to help women have healthy pregnancies later in life.
Shanahan has also said that her foundation is focused on finding a "cure to autism" and that she spends a lot of her time researching the topic.
Political Life
Before 2024, Shanahan usually supported the Democratic Party. She gave money to the campaigns of politicians like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. She also supported local reform efforts in Los Angeles County.
Role in the 2024 Presidential Campaign
In 2023, Nicole Shanahan began supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s run for president. At first, he was running as a Democrat. When he decided to run as an independent instead, Shanahan was disappointed. However, she later changed her mind and decided to back his campaign again.
She gave $4 million to a group called a super PAC to pay for a TV ad supporting Kennedy during the Super Bowl. A super PAC is a political group that can raise and spend large amounts of money but cannot work directly with a candidate's campaign.
On March 26, 2024, Kennedy announced that Shanahan would be his vice-presidential running mate. When she joined the ticket, she officially left the Democratic Party. As a very wealthy person, she was able to give a lot of her own money to help fund the campaign.
The Kennedy/Shanahan campaign worked to get on the ballot in states across the country. By August 2024, they were on the ballot in 16 states. On August 22, 2024, Kennedy and Shanahan ended their campaign and announced their support for Donald Trump.
Political Views
Shanahan has said she is "not an anti-vaxxer," but she has questioned the general scientific agreement on how safe and effective vaccines are. She has suggested a link between childhood vaccines and autism, an idea that has been disproven by major scientific studies.
She also believes that "electromagnetic pollution" from devices like cell phones is contributing to health problems. She has criticized the U.S. government for giving military aid to Ukraine.
In January 2025, Shanahan released a video on the social media site X. In it, she said she would personally fund political opponents against any U.S. senator who voted against confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Personal Life
In 2014, Shanahan married Jeremy Kranz, but they divorced in 2015.
She met Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, in 2014, and they married in 2018. They have one daughter, who was born in 2018. Their daughter was diagnosed with autism, which led Shanahan to explore different health approaches and focus her foundation's work on the condition.
Shanahan and Brin separated in 2021 and their divorce was finalized in 2023. As part of the divorce, Shanahan reportedly received a settlement that made her a billionaire. During their separation, there were media reports of a brief affair between Shanahan and Elon Musk, which both of them have denied.
In 2023, Shanahan had a "love ceremony" with Jacob Strumwasser, an advisor at a Bitcoin software company. In 2025, she announced she was joining Jews for Jesus, a religious group. She had converted to Judaism in 2014.
