SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN is a staff writer at The Washington Post. Prior to this, he was a foreign correspondent for nearly a decade, reporting from more than 50 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and Central America.

Raghavan covered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a unilateral reporter, then the ongoing insurgency. He also covered the Sept 11th terror attacks and its aftermath, writing from the Middle East, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. He has investigated child slavery in the Ivory Coast,and most recently covered the humanitarian crisis and civil war in Sudan's Darfur region.

Raghavan began his career freelancing from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 1992 and then spent a year on the reporting staff of Newsweek International. He was later based in Johannesburg as a super stringer, freelancing across Africa and Asia for an array of U.S. and British media, including Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 1997, he joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a roving general assignment writer. In 2000 he opened Knight Ridder's bureau in Nairobi, and was the chain's Africa bureau chief until he joined the Post in February 2005.

Raghavan attended UCLA, then Columbia University, where he earned two masters degrees, in journalism and international affairs, and a graduate certificate from its Southern Asian Institute.

Raghavan's coverage has been honored with many national and regional prizes, including the George Polk Award, the Overseas Press Club Award and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He is also a four-time SAJA award winner.