Bob Woodruff, award-winning ABC News correspondent,to deliver annual Amanpour lecture

KINGSTON, R.I. – Sept. 16, 2026 – Bob Woodruff, an award-winning correspondent for ABC News who has covered the world’s most influential stories over the last three decades, will deliver the University of Rhode Island’s 2026 Christiane Amanpour Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 4 p.m. in the Robert J. Higgins Welcome Center Hope Room, 46 Upper College Road on the Kingston Campus.

Woodruff, who succeeded the late Peter Jennings as anchor of “ABC World News Tonight,” will discuss his journalistic endeavors, as well as offer advice to students seeking journalism and media careers. The lecture, titled “A Conversation with Bob Woodruff,” and presented free and open to the public by the URI Harrington School of Communication and Media, will also be followed by a question-and-answer session.

“Bob Woodruff has a most distinguished career in journalism from a wide variety of perspectives. I was lucky to work at ABC News in primary research and audience analysis at the same time as Bob. I know first hand how strongly he connects with the viewing public,” Harrington School Director Justin Wyatt said. “He is a beloved figure. We are honored that he will be giving this year’s Christiane Amanpour Lecture.”

Registration is requested through the event website.

Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 and has produced award-winning coverage around the world. He has traveled to more than 100 countries, reporting from large, powerful nations to the most remote areas on the planet. His work ranged from covering wars and humanitarian crises to stories of recovery, environmental protection and hope.

In 2006, while covering news on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq. Just 13 months after being wounded, Woodruff returned to ABC News in February 2007 with his first on-air report “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports.” The hour-long documentary, which won a Peabody Award, chronicled Woodruff’s traumatic brain injury, his recovery, and plight of thousands of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar injuries.

In his best-selling memoir, “In an Instant”—co-authored with his wife, Lee—Woodruff shares stories about the fragility of life, the strength of family and the bravery of those who helped save him.

Woodruff’s resilience and recovery led him to co-found the Bob Woodruff Foundation, a national nonprofit that coordinates approximately 46,000 nonprofits to find, fund and shape forward-thinking programs in communities where veterans and their families and caregivers live and work. Since the foundation’s launch two decades ago, it has provided $228 million to help change the lives of more than 20 million veterans, service members and their families.

Additionally, Woodruff will spend time speaking with Harrington School students during his visit to URI.

The Christiane Amanpour Lecture is endowed and named for Amanpour ’83, Hon. ’95, chief international anchor for CNN and host of its award-winning, flagship global affairs program, “Amanpour,” as well as “Amanpour & Co.” Launched in 2008, the speaker series has attracted respected journalists to campus annually – including Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent C.J. Chivers of the New York Times (2011), freelance photographer David Goldman (2011), CNN anchor and senior political correspondent Abby Phillip (2021), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, and Amanpour herself (2019).