Elaine Sciolino

Senior Writer, the New York Times

Elaine Sciolino is a senior writer in the Washington bureau of The New York Times with responsibility for profiles and special projects. From November 1992 to early 1996, she was the Times’ chief diplomatic correspondent — the first woman to hold that post.

Before that, she covered the intelligence beat from 1991 to 1992 and served as a diplomatic correspondent from 1987 to 1991. From 1985 to 1987, she was bureau chief at the United Nations, after joining the newspaper in June 1984 as a metropolitan reporter.

From 1970 until 1984, Ms. Sciolino worked in a variety of capacities for Newsweek magazine, most notably as a foreign correspondent in Paris from 1978 to 1980, bureau chief in Rome from 1980 to 1982 and roving international correspondent based in New York from 1983 to 1984.

In those years, she covered such stories as the Iranian Revolution, the hostage crisis in Iran, the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Grenada and the U.S. Marines in Lebanon.

From September 1982 to June 1983, Ms. Sciolino was the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — the first woman ever to receive that honor.

She received the Overseas Press Club citation for magazine reporting abroad in 1983 and shared in the National Headliners Award for outstanding coverage of a major news event by a magazine in 1981 and a Page One Award in 1978.

Ms. Sciolino also authored the book, “The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein’s Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis.” in 1991.