Lee Cowan is an Emmy award winning journalist serving as a national correspondent and substitute anchor for CBS SUNDAY MORNING. His reporting also appears on all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.

Based in Los Angeles, Cowan has conducted interviews with a variety of news and entertainment personalities including First Lady Michelle Obama, pop star Bruno Mars, comedy great Carol Burnett and tennis legend Billie Jean King.  In addition he’s covered issues ranging from the nation’s public defender system, the water crisis on the Navajo Nation, and childhood hunger. 

Cowan has spent more than two decades of his nearly 30-year career at CBS News spread over two periods.

For CBS he’s covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2006 conflict in Beirut and the 2006 tsunami in Indonesia.

As a national correspondent from NBC News where he was reporting for the “NBC Nightly News,” “Today” and MSNBC, Cowan was assigned to cover the campaign and election of President Barack Obama; the tsunami in Japan in 2011, the crisis in Libya, and the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Previously, Cowan served as a correspondent for CBS Newspath, CBS News' 24-hour news service, and was a researcher for CBS News’ “CBS News Nightwatch” and then for the CBS EVENING NEWS in Washington, D.C.

His reporting career started in local news, serving as an anchor and reporter for WLWT-TV in Cincinnati. Prior to that, he was an anchor and reporter WWMT-TV, in Kalamazoo, Mich., and a weekend anchor for KCOY-TV in Santa Maria, Calif. Before joining KCOY-TV, Cowan held positions as news director and anchor at NBC affiliate KIEM-TV Eureka, Calif.

Born in Salt Lake City, Cowan graduated in 1988 from the University of Washington with a double major in communications and speech communications.  He is married to Molly Palmer, a producer on NBC’s “Today,” and together they have a son, Kevin Cowan, born in 2014.