Nancy Youssef covers the Middle East and the Islamic world for McClatchy Newspapers, based in Cairo.

She formerly served as McClatchy's chief Pentagon correspondent, focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She traveled frequently to those two nations to see how the policies crafted in Washington reached Afghans, Iraqis and the troops alike. She is also founder of the Pentagon Press Association.

Before covering the Pentagon, she spent four years covering the Iraq war, including a stint as Baghdad bureau chief. Her pieces focused on the everyday Iraqi experience, civilian casualities and how the U.S.'s military strategy was reshaping Iraq's social and political dynamics.

She joined the Washington Bureau in August 2005. Before that, she was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, covering legal issues. While at the Free Press, she traveled throughout Jordan and Iraq for Knight Ridder, covering the Iraq war from the time leading up to it through the post-war period. She began her journalism career at the Baltimore Sun.

She is also a contributing journalist to the News Literacy Project, a national program in which journalists educate middle and high school students about the news business and how to consume information in the digital age.

She has won several awards for her work, including the University of Virginia's Lawrence Hall Award for Distinguished Journalism covering the Middle East, the Maryland-D.C. Delaware Press Association and the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. A Washington, D.C.-area native, she earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from University of Virginia and master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her parents are from Egypt, and she has been visiting the region all of her life. She speaks Arabic.

Follow Nancy Youssef on Twitter: @nancyayoussef