Elizabeth Jane Kucinich (née Harper; born October 22, 1977 in North Ockendon, Havering, London, United Kingdom) is the wife of American Congressman and former Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. They married on August 21, 2005. Born Elizabeth Harper, she was brought up in North Ockendon in the London Borough of Havering. In 1996 she went to Agra, India, to volunteer at one of Mother Teresa`s homes for India`s poorest children. Upon earning her bachelor`s and master`s degrees at the University of Kent at Canterbury, she spent 16 months in a rural Tanzanian village and worked as an advocate for regional development. After leaving Tanzania, she volunteered with a British Red Cross refugee unit; earned a certificate in Peace Studies from Coventry University; and got a job as a fund-raiser for a seafarer`s charity in London. Her volunteer work often brought her to the House of Lords. At that time she heard financial analyst Stephen Zarlenga speak about monetary reform. She was impressed and soon was hired to become Zarlenga`s assistant at the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute.[1] That work took her and Zarlenga to Dennis Kucinich`s office. She married Dennis Kucinich in 2005, in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. The Sunday Times noted that one of her heroines is Diana, Princess of Wales, partly for her bringing "compassion back into public life". She is noted as having her tongue pierced with a silver stud.Like her husband Dennis, Elizabeth is a vegan.

She attended Coopers` Company and Coborn School in Upminster, Essex, from 1989 to 1996. She studied at the University of Kent at Canterbury from 1997 to 2001 and graduated with a BA in Religious Studies and Theology and a Master`s degree in International Conflict Analysis. Her thesis for her master`s was on "Conflict Resolution in World Politics".