Dana Hughes

 — -- Dana Hughes is an ABC News Digital Reporter covering the State Department and Foreign Affairs based in Washington, DC since 2007. Hughes was an ABC News reporter covering Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this role she contributed on- and off-air reporting to all ABC News broadcasts, ABC News Radio and ABC NewsOne, the network's affiliate news service, and also regularly files for ABC News' digital platforms, including ABCNEWS.com, ABC News NOW and ABC News' webcasts.

Previously, Hughes covered Africa for ABC News platforms, reporting on Kenya's response to Osama bin Laden's death, historic post-election violence in Kenya, as well as elections in Ghana and Zimbabwe. She was also part of ABC News' 2008 election coverage, reporting from the ancestral home of President Barack Obama's father and the African response to the U.S. election. She won an Emmy in 2009 as part of the ABC team reporting on the inauguration President Obama. Hughes reported from South Sudan during the country's historic referendum vote and contributed to ABC's news coverage of the 2011 Somalia Famine.

Before this position, Hughes was an associate producer for ABC News' Investigative Unit, where she helped produce stories for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, as well as the "The Blotter," the Investigative Unit's widely-read webpage on ABCNEWS.com.

Hughes won a 2006 Gracie Allen Award for the "20/20" and "Nightline" reports "The Dark Side of Cancun," where she traveled to Mexico, shooting undercover to expose the underbelly of the popular resort town. In 2006 she received a National Headliner Award for her work on an investigation into Nigerian 419 scams. She was also a part of ABC's Investigative Unit recognized with a 2006 Peabody Award for an investigation into Congressman Mark Foley and other corruption in the U.S. government, and an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2008 for the "20/20" report on prescription drug errors.

Hughes joined ABC News in 2005 as a Carnegie Corporation Fellow working with the ABC News Investigative Unit, where she examined the safety of nuclear reactors on college campuses. Before joining ABC, she worked as a writer and editor for the Ford Foundation.

A graduate with a BA from Colorado State University and a MS with honors distinction from The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Hughes was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Berlin, Germany for young journalists in 2006. She also attended the London School of Economics and Politics as a Hansard Scholar, where she worked in the British House of Commons.