Bobby Jindal, who is the 55th and current governor of Louisiana and a Republican, is running for president in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Him and his wife are outspoken advocates for children with congenital defects, particularly those without insurance. In 1999, Jindal was requested by the Louisiana Governor's Office and the Louisiana State Legislature to study how the state could use its $4.4 billion share of the tobacco settlement.

He was the youngest ever president of the University of Louisiana System, America's 16th largest system of higher education, at 28 years of age. President G.W. Bush nominated him to be assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation in 2001. Later, he was unanimously confirmed by a vote of the United States Senate and he began service on July 9, 2001.

He gave up that position in 2003 in order to go back to Louisiana and run for governor, a purpose he fulfilled.

Biography:

Bobby Jindal was born on June 10, 1971, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Indian parents who migrated to the U.S. just six months before he was born. He was brought up in a Hindu household, but he converted to Christianity in High School. He entered a Catholic Church in his freshman year at Brown University. His whole family is now Christian.

He comes from a very educated family. His younger brother, Nikesh, impressively enough, went to Dartmouth College and then went on to Yale Law School and is now working as a lawyer in Washington D.C.

Education:

Jindal went to Baton Rouge Magnet High School, where he engaged in many extracurricular activities. He was one of the 50 students nationwide who were selected to attend the PLME program at Brown University.

He attended the New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He was accepted by Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School. He earned a M. Litt degree in political science with a major in health policy from the University of Oxford in 1994. He joined the consulting firm McKinsey & Company right after he graduated from college. He is a registered Republican and he worked on his brother's campaign for governor.

Personal Life:

Jindal met his wife in High School and married her in 1997. She too was born to Indian immigrant parents. His wife, Supriya Jolly, got a Bachelor's degree from Tulane University and a PhD in Marketing at Louisiana University. She went on to create The Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana's Children, a non-profit organization that aims to improve the standard of science and mathematics education in schools. They're parents to three children, Selia Elizabeth, Shaan Robert and Salde Ryan.