Biography

Dr. Neal Baer is Executive Producer of the NBC television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. During his tenure, among the awards the series has won include the Shine Award, People’s Choice Award, the Prism Award, Edgar Award and the Media Access Award. Actors on the show have won five Emmys and the Golden Globe. The series regularly appears among the top ten television dramas in national ratings. Prior to his work on SVU, Dr. Baer was Executive Producer of the NBC series ER. A member of the show’s original staff and a writer and producer on the series for seven seasons, he was nominated for five Emmys as a producer. He also received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing in A Drama Series for the episodes “Hell and High Water” and Whose Appy Now? For the latter, he also received a Writers’ Guild of America nomination. Dr. Baer serves on the boards of many organizations related to health care, including the Venice Family Clinic (the largest free clinic in the U.S.), RAND Health, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Children Now, Reach Out and Read, and the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS). He is a trustee of the Writers Guild of America Health and Pension Fund, a member of the Board of Associates at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a trustee of Colorado College and an elected member to Harvard University’s alumni board. He is also Co-Chair of the CDC and Gates Foundationsupported, Hollywood, Health and Society. Dr. Baer received the Valentine Davies Award in 2004 from the Writers Guild of America for “public service efforts in both the entertainment industry and the community at large, bringing dignity to and raising the standard for writers everywhere.” He has received the Special Individual Achievement Award from the Media Project; the Leadership Award from NOFAS; the Loop Award from Lupus LA for educating the public about lupus and autoimmune diseases; the Socially Responsible Medicine Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility for “accomplishment in crafting compelling health messages;” and the Feminist Majority Foundation for promoting global woman’s rights on television. Dr. Baer lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Gerrie Smith, and his son Caleb, who will be attending Williams College in the fall.

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