CNN International's Amara Walker - Biography

Amara Walker is a well known TV personality and a journalist. At present she hosts CNN Today alongside Australian news broadcaster Michael Holmes.

Early Life

Amara was born aon November 30,1981 and raised in Los Angeles, California.She holds a dual nationality of Korean and an American. Her descent can be traced back to Korea. She completed her high school in 1998. Walker attended the University of Southern California and graduated Magna cum Laude with a dual degree in political science and broadcast journalism in 2003. Her full name is Amara Sohn Walker, Sohn being her family name before marriage. She is fluent in Korean as well as Spanish.

Career

Amara started her journalism career in Palm Springs, California working under KMIR-TV, a NBC-affiliated TV station. In 2005, she shifted to work at WTVJ in Miami, Florida which is NBC owned station. She worked there for seven years, as a news anchor and a general reporter.    

In 2012, 34-year-old Amara shifted to Fox News Channel - WFLD, in Chicago, Illinois as a freelance reporter and a general assignment reporter. In October 2012, she was promoted to a weekend anchor along with Larry Yellen. After more than a year of service at WFLD, she moved to Atlanta with her husband and joined CNN International. Since 2014, she has been hosting CNN Today along with Michael Holmes.

Since joining CNN, she has had better exposure to news reporting. She has reported many incidents such as death of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, death of Saudi Arabia's king Abdullah, coverage of Ottawa shooting in 2014 and also the Lindt Café terrorist siege in Australia.

Apart from reporting, she has also written articles for 22 News - WWLP.com.

Major News Covered

While working for WTVJ, she reported for national as well as international news. She covered for the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden, 2006 National Basketball Association (NBA) championship and also the governor's race in Florida in 2010. Moreover, she reported from New Orleans and Mississippi for the shift Hurricane Katrina towards the south in 2005. Also, she visited to the devastated areas in Haiti when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the country in 2010.

Serving as a weekend news anchor at Chicago, Walker got the opportunity to cover for 2012 Obama's presidential elections from his campaign headquarters. For the same year, she reported for the teachers strike in Chicago which led to a weeklong disruption in public schooling.

Other major news coverage of Amara includes, death of former Prime Minister of Israel - Ariel Sharon, in 2014, missing Malaysian 370 flight in 2014 which held 227 passengers, Sewol ferry disaster in South Korea carrying more than 400 passengers etc.

Personal Life

Five feet seven inches tall Amara tied the knot with plastic surgeon Thomas Walker on 2012 in Salzburg, Austria. It is not known about the couple having children until now, although Amara adores children.

Apart from her family, Amara was on the 7th position among top 17 CNN women news anchor in 2015 by List Acid. As of 2016, she was announced as the 12th most beautiful news women in American among top 20 by The Richest.

Amara prefers toast with peanut/almond butter with banana slices on top for her breakfast. She likes to add a cup of cappuccino along with her toast.

Wedding Website

Brunette beauty Amara and her surgeon-husband Thomas released their private wedding website prior to their wedding in 2012. Their website, Our Wedding was made on The Knot - a website which promotes creation of free wedding website for soon-to-be married couples.

Social Work

Amara participated in a campaign to raise funds to fight against breast cancer under the flagship of Dancing with Chicago Celebrities (DWCC) in 2013 along with her dance partner Drew Sutherland. She performed a rather sensational Cha Cha dance form - the money raised from the performances has been donated to Chicago Metropolitan Area (Chicago land).

3-D Print

Aorund 3 years back, Amara posted a few pictures on Facebook, of a statue of herself made out of a 3D-print. She was promoting the 3-D print because she was doing a show on the same on April 18, 2013.