President Obama nominated appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, making her the first Hispanic in history to be elevated to the high court.

BIO: Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Sotomayor, 54, who has been a federal judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 1998, has a formidable resume. From 1992 to 1998, Sotomayor was a federal judge for the U. S. District Court Southern District of New York. She served as an assistant district attorney for New York County from 1979 to 1984. Sotomayor also worked in private practice for the New York-based law firm Pavia & Harcourt from 1984 to 1992.

As a district judge, Sotomayor advanced First Amendment religious claims by tossing out a state prison rule banning members of a religious sect from wearing colored beads to ward off evil spirits, and by rejecting a suburban law preventing the display of a 9-foot-high menorah in a park.

A New York native, Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976. She earned her law degree from Yale Law School in 1979. Sotomayor has received honorary degrees from Lehman College, Princeton University, Brooklyn Law School, Pace University School of Law, Hofstra University and Northeastern University.

Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, N.Y., to Puerto Rican parents and was raised in a housing project. Her father, a factory worker, died when she was nine-years-old. Her mother, a nurse, raised Sotomayor, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age eight.