Lara Setrakian

ABC News Reporter

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Lara Setrakian is an ABC News reporter based in Dubai, UAE. In this role she contributes 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.

Setrakian has covered the Middle East extensively, filing from across the Arab world and Iran. She covered Lebanon's violent unrest in May 2008 and reported from Saudi Arabia during the oil price crisis that summer. She filed an exclusive report on a $3 billion collection of modern masterpieces in the basement of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art, and was the only network reporter with the US Navy's counter-piracy task force when it caught its first band of suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden. While on that assignment, Setrakian was the first American to interview the new president of war-torn Somalia, Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed.

Before moving to the Middle East, Setrakian was a reporter with ABC News' Law & Justice Unit. There she covered high-profile trials and cases, from the JonBenet Ramsey murder to breaking major exclusive stories on the Duke Lacrosse case. In 2006 she conducted an exclusive interview with five Chinese men released from Guantanamo Bay after a wrongful detention. Setrakian also played a key editorial role in "Ballotwatch," the Law & Justice Unit's 2006 Midterm election coverage. She has helped produce dozens of pieces for various ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including "Prescription for Change," a series about America's healthcare system, and a "Nightline" investigative report on the Virginia Tech shooting.

Setrakian began her broadcasting career at WHRB-FM Radio in Boston, where she served as anchor and news director. Prior to joining ABC News, she worked as a business analyst with McKinsey & Company, focusing on finance and corporate strategy.

In 2007 she received a fellowship from the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution.

Setrakian graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in government and a certificate in Spanish. A native of Englewood, New Jersey, she speaks French, Spanish, Arabic and Armenian, and has studied Persian and Portuguese.