C. J. Chivers

C. J. Chivers is a journalist on the Foreign and Investigative desks of The New York Times, and frequently posts for the At War blog, writing on conflict, politics, crime and human rights from Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Georgia, Chechnya and elsewhere on a wide range of assignments. In addition to writing, he shoots video and, occasionally, photographs. He served as Moscow correspondent from June 2004 through mid-2008. He has also covered war zones or conflict in the Palestinian territories, Israel and Central Asia. From 1999 until 2001 he was a Metro reporter covering crime and law enforcement in New York City, working in a three-reporter bureau inside the police headquarters in Lower Manhattan. While in this bureau, he covered the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Before joining The Times, Mr. Chivers was a staff writer at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island from 1995 until 1999, covering crime and politics, and was a contributor to several magazines, writing on wildlife, natural history and conservation. He remains a contributor to Esquire and Field & Stream.

From 1988 until 1994, Mr. Chivers was an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, serving in the Persian Gulf War and performing peacekeeping duties as an infantry company commander during the Los Angeles riots. He was honorably discharged as a captain in 1994.

In 1996, Mr. Chivers received the Livingston Award for International Journalism for a series on the collapse of commercial fishing in the North Atlantic. Two of his stories in The Times from Afghanistan were cited in the award of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2002. In 2007, his reconstruction for Esquire of the terrorist siege of a public school in Beslan, Russia, won the Michael Kelly Award and National Magazine Award for Reporting. He was also part of The Times's team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009, for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

His book of history and conflict, "The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War" will be published by Simon & Schuster in the fall.

Mr. Chivers graduated with a B.A. cum laude in English from Cornell University in January 1988. He was the 1995 valedictorian of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also graduated from several military schools, including the United States Army's Ranger Course.