Christopher C. Baker was born in Boston and raised in Laconia, NH. After graduating from Williams College in 1970, he attended Harvard Medical School. Dr. Baker pursued a residency in general surgery at the University of California in San Francisco. Dr. Baker began a 35 year career in academic surgery at Yale, where he ran the trauma Center and received an NIH research grant (1981-89). He subsequently continued his career at UNC in Chapel Hill (1989-2004), the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston (2004-2007), as Chairman at LSU-New Orleans (2007-2010), and finally as Chair of Surgery at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA (2010-2015.

During his career, Dr. Baker has devoted his clinical efforts to general surgery, trauma, and critical care. In addition to caring for patients, Dr. Baker has been devoted to education and has received numerous teaching awards. An avid skier, Dr. Baker also has a third degree black belt in Taekwondo.