Co-Anchor, Today

Matt Lauer has been co-anchor of NBC News' Today since January 6, 1997. He joined Today in January 1994 as news anchor. From September 1992 to September 1996, Lauer was at WNBC-TV, the NBC television station in New York. There he served as a co-anchor of the early morning newscast Today in New York from September 1992 until September 1994, and as a co-anchor of the early evening newscast News Channel 4: Live at Five from August 1993 until September 1996. He began substituting on Today as a news anchor in early 1993 before becoming the permanent news anchor in 1994.

Since joining NBC News, Lauer has conducted a number of newsworthy interviews. Most recently Lauer conducted an exclusive interview with the sole survivor of the Sago Mine tragedy, Randall McCloy. In June 2005, Lauer sat down with Tom Cruise for an interview that garnered a tremendous amount of attention for Cruise's response to Lauer's questions about Scientology and psychiatry. Other exclusive interviews included two individuals involved in the Scott Peterson investigation, Amber Frye and Anne Bird. In January 1998, Lauer conducted the first interview with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal made headlines. Lauer also conducted a 20-minute interview and tour of the George H.W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas, with the former president himself. In April 2000, Lauer marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon with an interview with former P.O.W. and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, live from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

In August 2005, Lauer co-anchored Today from Iraq, hosting the show from Baghdad's "Camp Liberty," where he interviewed Gen. Richard Myers and U.S. troops. Lauer co-anchored a special split show of Today in May of 2004 when NBC became the first American television network to broadcast live from the border of North and South Korea. In November 2002, Lauer sat down with 11 crew members from Flight 63, the trans-Atlantic flight that Richard Reid, a.k.a. the "shoebomber," targeted in December 2001. The interview aired in four parts on Today, and as a full hour on Dateline NBC. When Operation Iraqi Freedom started in March 2003, Lauer contributed live reports from Qatar, the region that served as a staging area for American forces in the preparations for war. Lauer gave Today viewers first-person reports from this critical battleground. In August 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City, Lauer secured an exclusive interview with President George W. Bush. This newsmaking interview covered such topics as Bush's strategies for campaigning in key battleground states, the war against terror, and the mindset of the Middle East. Lauer also contributed to coverage of such live, special events and news stories as coverage of the past six years of the Olympic Games, the passing of Pope John Paul II in April 2005, and broadcast-network coverage of President Ronald Reagan's funeral in June 2004.

For the past 10 years, the "Where in the World is Matt Lauer" annual trip has been one of Today's trademark segments. Lauer has broadcast live from numerous remote locations around the world. He has logged nearly 200,000 miles in his travels to more than 35 locations around the globe. In the spring of 1998, Lauer reported from the Great Pyramids in Egypt, the Grand Canal in Venice, the Parthenon in Athens, the Taj Mahal in India and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. In 1999, his week-long adventure took him to the slopes of Mount Everest, the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt in the Adriatic Sea, the floor of the Coliseum in Rome, and the ramparts of the Great Wall of China. In 2000 he covered more than 39,000 miles with stops at the Kilauea volcano in Hilo, Hawaii; Bilbao, Spain; Victoria Falls; Zimbabwe; Pisa and Florence, Italy; and Iceland. For the 2001 trip, his stops included Machu Pichu, Peru; an oil rig off the coast of Scotland; Paris; Bangkok; and Mykonos, Greece. Lauer's 2002 jaunt took him to Rio de Janiero, Brazil; Scotland; an escape in the Amazon rainforest; Marrakech/Rose City; the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia; and jet-setting in Monaco. In 2004, he reported from a Mombo Camp in Botswana; the alps of Zermatt, Switzerland; Red Square in Moscow; Hong Kong; and Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson's private island. Most recently, in 2005, he traveled to Easter Island; Panama Canal; the slopes of Innsbruck, Austria; Shanghai, China; and Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Before joining WNBC-TV, Lauer hosted a daily, live, three-hour interview program, 9 Broadcast Plaza, in New York from 1989 to 1991. Before that, his experience included hosting a number of weekly information and talk programs in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond.

Lauer began his career in 1979 as a producer of the noon news on WOWK-TV in Huntington, W.Va. In 1980, he was a reporter on the station's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Lauer is a graduate of Ohio University. He lives in New York with his wife, Annette Roque Lauer, and their son, Jack, and daughter, Romy.