She has traveled through and written about Afghanistan, Russia, Chechnya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Uganda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and the former Yugoslavia.
She is the sister of former diplomat and journalist and executive editor at Bloomberg News, James Rubin who served under President Bill Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief Spokesman for the State Department.
Her reportage in Harper's about private armies, diamond wars, and state collapse in Sierra Leone was a National Magazine Award finalist and earned an Overseas Press Club citation for excellence.
After 9/11, she covered the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for The New Republic and wrote about Russians, Chechens, Saudis, Iraqis, Iranians, and Americans abroad for The New York Times Magazine, where she is a contributing writer.
At The New Yorker, she won the Livingston Award for International Reporting for her story about a Ugandan rebel army of kidnapped children.