Early life and education

A native of San Francisco, Martinez earned a bachelor's degree in 1997 from Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville State University is a regional public coeducational university located in Jacksonville, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in four academic units leading to Bachelor's, Master's, and Education Specialist degrees, in addition to continuing and...

 in Jacksonville, Alabama

Jacksonville, Alabama

Jacksonville is a city in Calhoun County, Alabama, United States. which is a 49% increase since 2000. It is included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area...

.

Professional career

Martinez began her broadcasting career as a video editor at WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

, where she worked from 1997 until 2003. In 2000, she co-hosted a morning radio show on WOXR-FM in Oxford, Alabama

Oxford, Alabama

Oxford is a city in Calhoun and Talladega counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population was 14,592 at the 2000 census. Oxford is one of two principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. In 2003, Martinez became a photographer, general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor at WDSI-TV

WDSI-TV

WDSI-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for Chattanooga, Tennessee. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 40 from a transmitter on Sawyer Cemetery Road in unincorporated Hamilton County. The station can also be seen on Comcast and Charter channel 11...

 in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...

. She then rejoined WBRC-TV in April 2004 as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor. While there, Martinez developed a higher level of national visibility when she spent eight weeks in Aruba

Aruba

Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...

 covering the disappearance of Natalee Holloway

Natalee Holloway

Natalee Ann Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, a Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. An American student from Mountain Brook, Alabama, Holloway graduated from Mountain Brook High School on May 24, 2005, shortly before the trip...

.

In May 2006, Martinez was hired by WBBM-TV

WBBM-TV

WBBM-TV, virtual channel 2 , is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV's main studios and offices are located in The Loop section of Chicago, as part of the development at Block 37, and its transmitter is atop the Willis Tower.-History:WBBM-TV traces its history...

 in Chicago as a general assignment reporter. On September 20, 2007, she was promoted to be a weekend news anchor at the station.

Personal

Martinez is half Cuban and half Vietnamese. She is single and lives in the Uptown

Uptown, Chicago

Uptown is one of Chicago’s 77 community areas. Uptown has well defined boundaries. They are: Foster on the north; Lake Michigan on the east; Montrose , and Irving Park on the south; Ravenswood , and Clark on the west. Uptown borders three community areas and Lake Michigan...

neighborhood on Chicago's North Side.

External links

• WBBM-TV Profile