About Tara Parker-Pope

Tara Parker-Pope is the creator and writer of “Well,” a daily health blog and weekly column for The New York Times. Well features and stories focus primarily on the small everyday decisions we make about food, family and fun that ultimately influence our long-term health and happiness. Prior to joining the Times in August 2007, Tara was the long-time health columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and also worked as a correspondent in the paper’s London bureau.

The Newswomen’s Club of New York recently recognized Well as the best blog of 2011, In 2010, Tara won the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s media award for outstanding newspaper article for her report, “Kept From a Dying Partner’s Bedside.” A few months later, the story was cited by President Obama as influencing his decision to issue new rules for hospitals in their treatment of same-sex couples. Her story “Drinking to Extremes to Celebrate 21″ received the Research Society on Alcoholism 2009 annual journalism award. The Well blog was a best-blog finalist at both the 2009 Online News Associations Journalism Awards and the American Health Care Journalist awards

Tara received the Second Century Award for Excellence in Health Care from the Columbia University School of Nursing for her special Wall Street Journal report on the findings of the Women’s Health Initiative. Her work covering women’s health received the Media Award from the North American Menopause Society. Her article, “How To Give Your Child A Longer Life,” received the 2004 Front Page Award from the The Newswomen’s Club of New York.

She is also author of three books, including For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, (Dutton, May 2010), The Hormone Decision (Rodale, 2007), and Cigarettes: Anatomy of an Industry from Seed to Smoke, (New Press, 2002). Her work is also featured in the 2008 edition of Best American Science Writing, The New York Times Reader: Health and Medicine, and “The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life.”

Tara has also worked for the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman. Her work has been published in O Magazine, Reader’s Digest, More Magazine, Ladies Home Journal and American Legion Magazine, and has been featured on the Today Show, Charlie Rose, CNN, Dateline, CBS Sunday Morning and Good Morning America.

Tara is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She once ran a marathon and hopes to do it again, only faster and with less pain. An Arizona native, she spent her childhood in Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan, Texas and Ohio. She now resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her daughter and a menagerie of dogs (Fluffy, Teddy and Maggie) and cats (Sunshine, Mr. Talkie Pants and Frogsy, a kitten recently adopted from a Times colleague in Baghdad.)