Nancie Caraway

Who is Nancie Caraway?

Nancie Caraway, formally Dr. Nancy Ellen Caraway, Ph.D., is the First Lady of Hawaii. She is the spouse of former First Congressional District U.S. Representative and current Governor of Hawaii Neil Abercrombie. Caraway is a University of Hawaii at Manoa political scientist, feminist scholar and activist, a member of the university's Globalization Research Center and its Director of Women's Human Rights, leading its Trafficking Project. She is also a mentor and lecturer at the East–West Center.

Caraway was born in Alabama and arrived in Hawaii from Houston, Texas. She received her bachelor of arts degree in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1980. A resident of New York City while studying for her master of science degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Abercrombie, then a member of the Hawaii State Senate, and Caraway married in Palm Springs, California. She returned to Hawaii and completed a master of arts in 1986 and doctorate in 1991, both in political science.

Following her husband to Washington, D.C. where he served in the United States Congress, Caraway became an assistant professor at Georgetown University, George Washington University and American University.