Mass. U.S. Senate election: Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren is the Democratic candidate in the 2012 United State Senate election in Massachusetts. She is running against Republican incumbent Senator Scott Brown.

Warren was born in Oklahoma City in 1949 to working class parents Pauline and Donald Jones Herring. When she was 12, her father suffered a heart attack and grew to learn of economic pressures through constant medical bills and pat cuts. Warren had to work as a waitress to help the family’s finances.

In high school, Warren was named “Oklahoma’s top high-school debater” and received a debate-team scholarship to GWU when she was 16. She left two years later to marry her boyfriend Jim Warren. She and her husband -- a NASA engineer -- then moved to Houston where she enrolled in the University of Houston where she graduated from in 1970.

After having her first child, Warren enrolled at Rutgers School of Law. She graduated in 1976. Two years later, she and her husband divorced. Warren kept her surname and married Bruce Mann -- a Harvard law professor -- in 1980.

Throughout the next few decades, Warren taught at various institutions. She joined UPenn’s law school in 1987 and became a tenured professor.

She went on to become a professor at Harvard Law School in 1992.

Warren was asked to advise the National Bankruptcy Review Commission in 1995 and she was a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion from 2006 to 2010.

Warren on the issues:

“There are plenty of people in Washington looking out for the billion dollar corporations and lobbying for Wall Street. I've been an outsider, but for years, I've been fighting for middle class families, taking on big banks, putting forward new ideas, and working to turn those ideas into a reality that makes a difference for people. That's what I'll keep doing once I'm in the U.S. Senate. I'll be there fighting for small businesses and middle class families.” -- taken from Elizabeth Warren’s official page.