Sanjay Gupta

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the Emmy Award-winning chief medical correspondent for CNN. Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon, plays an integral role in CNN's reporting on health and medical news for American Morning, Anderson Cooper 360, and CNN documentaries, and anchors the weekend medical affairs program Sanjay Gupta, MD. Gupta also contributes to CNN.com and CNNHealth.com. His medical training and public health policy experience distinguish his reporting on a range of medical and scientific topics including brain injury, disaster recovery, healthcare reform, fitness, military medicine, HIV/AIDS, and other areas.

In 2011, Gupta has reported from earthquake- and tsunami-ravaged Japan, adding clarity and context to the human impact and radiation concerns. In 2010, Gupta reported on the devastating earthquake in Haiti and unprecedented flooding in Pakistan.

Based in Atlanta, Gupta joined CNN in the summer of 2001. He reported from New York following the attacks on the US on 9/11. In 2003, he embedded with the US Navy's "Devil Docs" medical unit, reporting from Iraq and Kuwait as the unit traveled to Baghdad. He provided live coverage of the first operation performed during the war, and performed lifesaving brain surgery five times himself in a desert operating room.

Gupta contributed to the network's 2010 Peabody Award-winning coverage of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Gupta contributed to CNN's Peabody Award-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina, revealing that official reports that Charity Hospital in New Orleans had been evacuated were incorrect. His "Charity Hospital" coverage for Anderson Cooper 360 resulted in his 2006 News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Feature Story. In 2004, Gupta was sent to Sri Lanka to cover the tsunami disaster that took more than 155,000 lives in Southeast Asia, contributing to the 2005 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for CNN.

Gupta's passion for inspiring Americans to lead healthier, more active lives led him to launch Fit Nation, CNN's multi-platform anti-obesity initiative. In 2011, Fit Nation follows the progress of Gupta and six CNN viewers as they inspire each other while training for a triathlon.

In addition to his work for CNN, Gupta is a member of the staff and faculty at the Emory University School of Medicine. He is associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital and regularly performs surgery at Emory University and Grady hospitals. He holds memberships in the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as a diplomat of the American Board of Neurosurgery, is a certified medical investigator, and is a board member of the Lance Armstrong LiveStrong Foundation.

Before joining CNN, Gupta completed separate neurosurgical fellowships at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic in Tennessee, and the University of Michigan Medical Center. In 1997, he was selected as a White House Fellow, serving as a special advisor to First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Gupta contributes to the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes and Evening News with Katie Couric. He is the author of two best-selling books, Chasing Life and Cheating Death, both of which became companion documentaries for CNN.

In 2003, Gupta was named one of PEOPLE magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" and a "pop culture icon" by USA Today. That same year he also won the Humanitarian Award from the National Press Photographers Association. In 2004, the Atlanta Press Club named him "Journalist of the Year," and in 2009, he won both the first Health Communications Achievement Award from the American Medical Association's Medical Communications Conference and the Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award from the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC). In 2011, Forbes magazine named him as one of the "Ten Most Influential Celebrities."

Gupta received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate of medicine from the University of Michigan Medical School.