James Church was born and raised in New Zealand, attending Medical School and his surgical training in Auckland, being awarded a Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1981. In 1983 he and his family travelled to the Cleveland Clinic for a clinical fellowship in the department of Colorectal Surgery and in 1989 he joined the staff of the Department. While at Cleveland Dr Church held the Victor W. Fazio Chair of Colorectal Surgery, was Vice Chair of the department, Head of Research, Director of the Section of Endoscopy, and Director of the Center for Hereditary Colorectal Neoplasia. Dr Church left Cleveland in 2021 and is currently a Professor of Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
During his 32-year career Dr Church has been Chairman of the Leeds Castle Polyposis Group and the International Collaborative Group on HNPCC and founded the Collaborative Group of the Americas for Inherited Gastrointestinal Cancer. He was Co-Editor of Diseases of the Colon and Rectum for 10 years, Vice President of ASCRS and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland. He has been a Fellow of the American Surgical Association, honorary Fellow of several national surgical and gastroenterological societies, sole author of 2 textbooks, editor of several, and author or co-author of over 445 peer-reviewed articles.