Jacqueline Layne Coleman (born June 9, 1982) is an American educator and politician serving as the 58th lieutenant governor of Kentucky since 2019. She has worked as a high school administrator, teacher, and basketball coach. Coleman is also the founder and president of Lead Kentucky, a nonprofit organization focused on education policy reform. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Coleman attended Mercer County High School in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, where she played basketball.^[2] She enrolled at Centre College in 2001 to study history, earned a bachelor's degree in 2004, and played college basketball for the Centre Colonels as a 5-foot-6 shooting guard.^[3][4][5][6] As a senior at Centre in 2003–04, Coleman averaged 26.4 minutes, 7.4 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists, with 14 starts in 25 games.^[5][7] She earned a master's degree in political science at the University of Louisville in 2008, and was a graduate assistant on the Louisville Cardinals women's basketball team in 2005–06 under head coach Tom Collen.^[4][2][8]

After graduating, Coleman became a social studies teacher at Burgin High School in Burgin, Kentucky, and coached the girls' basketball team.^[9] From 2008 through 2015, she coached and taught advanced government at East Jessamine High School in Nicholasville, Kentucky.^[2]

Coleman ran in a 2014 election to represent the 55th district in the Kentucky House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party. She lost the election to Kimberly King, a Republican, by over 30% in a traditionally Republican-dominated district.^[4][10] Specifically, there was no Democratic candidate to win a race in the 55th district that day.^[11]

In 2013, Coleman founded Lead Kentucky, a nonprofit organization focused on education policy reform. Inspired by Emerge Kentucky, the mission statement reads: "Lead Kentucky is a non-profit organization that recruits the best and brightest college women in the Bluegrass and empowers them to become the Commonwealth's next generation of leaders."^[12] By focusing on leadership development of college aged women through emphasis on networking, finding a work/life balance, and overcoming obstacles (specifically in Kentucky), Coleman hopes that this program will empower women to take on roles that they may otherwise avoid.^[13]

She became assistant principal at Nelson County High School in Bardstown, Kentucky in 2017,^[4] a position she held until her resignation in November 2019, following her election as lieutenant governor.^[14] Coleman is a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky, where she is studying educational leadership.^[15]

Coleman's grandfather, Jack Coleman, played in the National Basketball Association.^[3] Her father, also named Jack, served in the Kentucky House, representing the 55th district from 1991 through 2004.^[4]

Coleman and her husband, Chris O'Bryan, announced her pregnancy during the 2019 campaign. Their daughter was born on February 8, 2020, making Coleman the highest-ranking elected executive official and first lieutenant governor in Kentucky history to give birth while in office.^[23] Coleman also has another daughter, a former student she coached, whom she and O'Bryan adopted in December 2019, and is the stepmother to O'Bryan's two sons from a previous relationship.^{[3][24][25][26]} On December 18, 2023, Coleman had a double mastectomy due to her family's history of cancer.^[27]

• List of female lieutenant governors in the United States