Hope Conference Speakers

Bob Woodruff
ABC News Anchor

Bob Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 and has covered major stories throughout the country and around the world for the network. He was named co-anchor of ABC's World News Tonight in December 2005. On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq.

In February 2007, just 13 months after being wounded in Iraq, Woodruff returned to ABC News with his first on-air report, “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports.” The hour-long, primetime documentary chronicled his traumatic brain injury (TBI), his painstaking recovery and the plight of thousands of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar injuries. Woodruff continues to cover traumatic brain injuries for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms and was honored with a Peabody Award in 2008 for his reporting on the subject.

Since returning to the air, Woodruff has reported from around the globe–North Korea on the country's denuclearization process, Syria and Jordan on the exodus of Iraqi refugees in those countries and from war-torn Sudan. His overseas reporting of the fallout from September 11 was part of ABC News' coverage recognized with the Alfred I. duPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism.

In February 2007, Woodruff and his wife, Lee, co-wrote a bestselling memoir, In an Instant, chronicling his injuries in Iraq and how their family persevered through a time of intense trauma and uncertainty. The Woodruff family established the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury (BWFF) to raise money to assist members of the military with cognitive rehabilitation and care following a traumatic brain injury suffered in service to their country.

Woodruff has a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a BA from
Colgate University.

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