Rachel Martin

— -- Rachel Martin is a correspondent for ABC News based in Washington, D.C. She covers politics, foreign affairs and faith and values topics for ABC News platforms, including "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Weekend Good Morning America."

Before coming to ABC News in July 2008, Martin spent several years as a reporter for National Public Radio, where her work appeared regularly on "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," as well as on other national public radio shows. Most recently, she hosted the Bryant Park Project, NPR's experimental online morning news show.

Before joining the Bryant Park Project, Martin was a foreign correspondent based in Berlin, starting in 2005. While based in Berlin, she covered the London terrorist attacks, the federal elections in Germany, the 2006 World Cup and issues surrounding immigration and shifting cultural identities in Europe. Martin returned to the United States in August 2006 as NPR's religion correspondent for the network's national desk. The following year, she won an award for "best radio feature" by the Religion News Writers Association for a story about Islam in America.

As one of NPR's reporters assigned to cover the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, she was on the school's campus within hours of the shooting and on the ground in Blacksburg, Va., covering the investigation and emotional aftermath in the following days.

Martin's began her career with NPR as a freelance reporter in Afghanistan, where she covered the reconstruction effort after the U.S. invasion in 2003 and, later, the country's first Democratic presidential election. She has reported widely on women's issues in Afghanistan, the emerging transitional justice system and NATO-led efforts to quell the ongoing Taliban insurgency. She has also reported from Iraq, where she covered U.S. military operations in Baghdad and their effect on Iraqi citizens, the alliance between Sunni sheiks and the U.S. military in Anbar province, and the war crimes trial of Chemical Ali.

Martin's journalism career began as a producer and reporter at KQED, the NPR affiliate in San Francisco. An Idaho native, she was awarded a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in 2003 and is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wa., with a degree in politics and government.