Sharon Emily Epperson (born April 12, 1968) is Senior Personal Finance Correspondent for

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sh ...

. She also appears on

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's ...

shows, ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' and ''

NBC Nightly News ''NBC Nightly News'' (titled as ''NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt'' for its weeknight broadcasts since June 22, 2015) is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NBC television network in the U ...

''.

Early life and education

Epperson is the daughter of David E. Epperson and Ceceila T. Epperson, a retired schoolteacher in the Pittsburgh Public School System, last teaching at Lincoln Elementary School in Pittsburgh. Her grandfather was a steelworker. Her father, now deceased, was Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh for nearly 30 years and was the first African-American dean at the school. Epperson graduated from Pittsburgh's Taylor Allderdice High School in 1986 and was inducted into their alumni hall of fame in 2011. She served a summer internship at the age of 18 in the Pittsburgh Press library department. Epperson holds a bachelor's degree in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

and government from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, a master's degree in international affairs from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, and an honorary doctorate from Carlow University in Pittsburgh. At Harvard, she joined the Lambda Upsilon chapter of the

Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. () is the first intercollegiate historically African American sorority. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen st ...

sorority. She has been an adjunct instructor of international affairs at Columbia University's School of International Public Affairs since 2000.

Career

In 1996, Epperson began working with CNBC. She was previously CNBC's senior energy correspondent, stationed at the

New York Mercantile Exchange The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is a commodity futures exchange owned and operated by CME Group of Chicago. NYMEX is located at One North End Avenue in Brookfield Place in the Battery Park City section of Manhattan, New York City. ...

(NYMEX) covering the commodities markets on a daily basis for eight years. In 2015, Epperson was one of six panelists covering the Republican presidential debate. Epperson has covered personal finance in a column for ''

USA Weekend ''USA Weekend'' was an American weekend newspaper magazine owned by the Gannett Company. Structured as a sister publication to Gannett's flagship newspaper ''USA Today'' and distributed in the Sunday editions of participating local newspapers, i ...

'' magazine and her writing has also appeared in ''

Essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

'' magazine, ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', and ''

Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...

'' magazine. She also authored ''The Big Payoff: 8 Steps Couples Can Take to Make the Most of Their Money and Live Richly Ever After.'' ''The Big Payoff
/ref> Epperson hosts the digital video serie
Retire Well

Awards

1995: 1st place honors from the National Association of Black Journalists for team coverage on Time magazine's cover story on the Nation of Islam.
1999: Silver World Medal from the New York Festivals, an international television programming competition.
2001: Gracie Allen Award from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television.
2003: Trailblazer of the Year Award from the New York Association of Black Journalists.
2003: All-Star Award from the Association of Women in Communications.

Personal life

A native of Pittsburgh, she and her husband, Christopher John Farley, also an award-winning journalist and author, live in Westchester County, N.Y., with their two children. They have been married since August 30, 1997. Her sister,

Lia Epperson Lia Beth Epperson (born 1971 or 1972) is an American civil rights lawyer and professor of law at American University Washington College of Law. She previously served as the senior associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at the law school. ...

, is a civil rights lawyer and law professor at American University Washington College of Law, and former

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

CEO Ben Jealous is Sharon's former brother-in-law. In 2016, Epperson suffered rupture of a

brain aneurysm An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a brain aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel. Aneurysms in the posterior circu ...

while at the gym, but had no permanent brain damage.

References

External links