Ben Carson

Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, academic, author, and government official who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. A pioneer in the field of neurosurgery, he was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Carson is one of the most prominent black conservatives in the United States. Carson became the youngest chief of pediatric neurosurgery in the United States in 1984, when he took the job at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center at age 33. In 1987, he gained fame for leading a team of surgeons in the first-known separation of conjoined twins joined at the back of the head. He performed the first successful neurosurgical procedure on a fetus inside the womb, developed new methods to treat brain-stem tumors, and revitalized hemispherectomy techniques for controlling seizures. He has written more than 100 neurosurgical publications. He retired from medicine in 2013; at the time, he was professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Carson gained national fame among political conservatives after delivering a speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast that was perceived as critical of the policies of President Barack Obama. After widespread speculation about a presidential run, Carson announced his campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination for president in May 2015. Carson performed strongly in early polls and was considered a frontrunner for the nomination in fall 2015, but did poorly in the primaries and withdrew from the race after Super Tuesday. He subsequently endorsed Donald Trump, who as president nominated him to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He was confirmed by the United States Senate, 58–41, on March 2, 2017. Carson has received numerous honors for his neurosurgery work, including more than 70 honorary doctorate degrees and numerous national merit citations. In 2001, he was named by CNN and Time magazine as one of the nation's 20 foremost physicians and scientists and was named by the Library of Congress as one of 89 "Living Legends" on its 200th anniversary. In 2008, Carson was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2010, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He was the subject of the 2009 biographical television film Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, in which he was portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr.