Jennifer Ashton

Jennifer Lee Garfein Ashton (born April 23, 1969) is an American physician, author, and television correspondent. She is chief health and medical editor and chief medical correspondent for ABC News and Good Morning America, chief women's health correspondent for The Dr. Oz Show, and a columnist for Cosmopolitan Magazine. Ashton is also a regular contributor to the ABC daytime program GMA3: What You Need to Know. She is also a frequent guest speaker and moderator for events raising awareness of women's health issues.

Early life and education
Ashton was born in Victorville, California to Oscar Garfein, a New York City cardiologist, and Dorothy Garfein, a registered nurse. Her brother, Evan Garfein, is chief of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery at Montefiore Hospital in New York City.

Ashton attended Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York City, where she studied French and English. She graduated from Columbia College, Columbia University in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in art history. She completed a medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2000. While at Columbia, she served as President of her medical school class for all four years and was awarded the Bartlestone Prize in Pharmacology at graduation.

Upon completion of her residency at Mt. Sinai West (formerly St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in NYC), she was awarded Chief Resident of the Year, this was the first time this award was ever given in the history of the program. She subsequently earned a master's degree in nutrition from Columbia University, in 2016.

Career
Ashton is double board-certified in obstetrics, gynecology and Obesity Medicine. Ashton completed her residency at St. Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital Center (now Mount Sinai Morningside) in New York.

She has practiced as an attending physician at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, an affiliate of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Englewood, New Jersey, and is currently in private practice.

Ashton launched her television career in 2006 as the first female medical contributor to the Fox News Channel. She appeared on TLC's A Baby Story, on PBS, and on Oprah & Friends XM radio's The Dr. Oz Show.

She joined CBS News as a medical correspondent in 2009.

After departing CBS, she transitioned to being the medical expert for the short-lived ABC daytime wellness series The Revolution in 2012, then transitioned to ABC News's medical unit as a senior medical contributor in 2012, making regular appearances on Good Morning America and ABC World News Tonight.

In 2013 she became an on-air personality for the daytime talk show The Doctors.

As of March 2020, she has been a co-host during showings of GMA3: What You Need to Know (formerly Pandemic: What You Need to Know). Ashton also serves as the chief health and medical editor and chief medical correspondent for ABC News and Good Morning America. She is only the 3rd doctor to hold that position in the history of ABC News, and the first woman.

Ashton is the author of The Body Scoop for Girls (2009), Your Body Beautiful (2012), Eat This, Not That! When You're Expecting (2016), Life After Suicide (2019), The Self Care Solution (2019), and The New Normal (2021). In 2023, Ashton published the first issue of The Dr. Jen Ashton Magazine. Ashton serves as the Editor and Chief. The magazine's launch was the most successful A360 Magazine launch in three years.

In April 2024, Ashton announced she was leaving ABC News to launch a wellness company called Ajenda; Ashton is scheduled to depart ABC News in June 2024, when her contract expires.

Personal life
On August 31, 1996, Ashton married Robert Ashton Jr, a thoracic and cardiac surgeon and later had two children. They divorced in January 2017. Robert Ashton committed suicide on February 11, 2017 after the divorce finalization, jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River below. Ashton had made no mention public of the story until June 6, 2018, when she mentioned her and her family's grieving over it in an interview with colleague George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America during a story about the suicide of designer Kate Spade.

Ashton became engaged to Boston Red Sox chairman and television producer Tom Werner in January 2022. They were married on November 5, 2022, at the Harmonie Club in New York City, in a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony presided over by a rabbi.

Ashton has revealed that she learned Transcendental Meditation through the David Lynch Foundation.

Awards and honors
In 2007, Ashton was recognized as a Woman of Achievement by the Girl Scouts of Northern New Jersey. In 2008, she received the Hope for The Future Award from The Octoberwoman Foundation for Breast Cancer Awareness. While working as CBS News Network’s Medical Correspondent in 2009-2011, Dr. Ashton received the prestigious Columbia Alfred DuPont Award for Excellence in Journalism. Dr. Jennifer Ashton is the recipient of the American Heart Association's 2023 Woman Changing the World Award. She is also a four time Emmy Award winner.