Who Is Lin-Manuel Miranda's Attorney Wife, Vanessa Nadal?

Vanessa Nadal describes herself on Twitter as "alive and in love." and "attorney, engineer." She is an adjunct professor at Fordham University, currently working on a publication about cosmetic law for the university's Fashion Law Institute (via Fordham University). Nadal graduated from MIT in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and began her professional career in research at Johnson & Johnson, working on anti-aging products for a time. She eventually returned to her studies, pivoting to law and earning her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 2010.

The year 2010 was also momentous for Vanessa Nadal for another reason, one far more personal, as she also got married in the fall. On Sept. 5, 2010, Nadal married Lin-Manuel Miranda in Staatsburg, New York, at the elegant Belvedere Mansion (via The New York Times). Their union culminated a five-year courtship, though their love story began long before: at Hunter College High School in New York City.

Though Lin-Manuel Miranda was considered one of the coolest kids at his high school, he was also admittedly shy when it came to someone he liked. At the time, in 1998, Miranda was a senior, about to graduate, and Nadal was a sophomore, described as "mathematical, opinionated, a great dancer, and independent." To Miranda, Vanessa Nadal was someone he couldn't even speak to, telling the Times in 2010, "She was gorgeous and I'm famously bad at talking to women I find attractive. I have a total lack of game."

As a result, the two never connected, not until seven years later that is. In 2005, Miranda, who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2002, came upon Nadal's profile on Facebook and noticed that among her interests were hip-hop and salsa — two major components of his work with the improv troupe Freestyle Love Supreme and his future award-winning musical In the Heights (via SpeakEasy).

At last, Miranda would have his opening, and as the story goes, he took it, inviting Nadal to one of his group's next hip-hop performances (via The Oprah Magazine). To his surprise, she attended; he got her number (getting a friend to ask for him, of course); and some seven years after walking the same high-school halls, the two Hunter alums were finally in each other's lives.

When Lin-Manuel Miranda won the Tony Award for Best Original Score for In the Heights in 2008, he rapped his acceptance speech and dedicated his win to his future wife Vanessa Nadal: "Vanessa, who still leaves me breathless, thanks for loving me when I was broke and making breakfast" (via YouTube). In 2016, when he accepted his second Best Original Score Tony, this time for the acclaimed Hamilton, he read a sonnet, which began with these four lines: "My wife's the reason anything gets done / She nudges me towards promise by degrees / She is a perfect symphony of one / Our son is her most beautiful reprise" (via The New York Times).

Nadal and Miranda married in 2010 and welcomed their first son, Sebastian, in 2014. In 2018, they introduced their second son, Francisco, to the world, with Miranda, of course, dramatically setting the scene: "Int. Hospital Room. Night. / [The screams reach a delirious crescendo. FRANCISCO MIRANDA enters. He is 7 pounds and 13 ounces.] / Intermission" (via Twitter).

In her Twitter bio, Vanessa Nadal also states: "Forever: @Lin_Manuel #Mommyof2." At Fordham University, Vanessa Nadal, the attorney, continues to lead at the Fashion Law Institute. In 2019, she served as both co-creator and co-professor of Fordham Law's first Cosmetics Regulation course. About his wife, Miranda once said: "She knows she's dope. She's beautiful but not vain. She's smart but not arrogant. It's like, all killer, no filler."