She is based in the Bangkok bureau, covering Thailand and other countries in the region for text, "as well as producing the odd video story", she told Journalism.co.uk.
"There is a lot going on at the moment so the challenge is getting to grips with the fast-changing situation."
Macnamara joins AFP from the Press Association, where she was city reporter.
Her first journalism role was as assistant on the foreign desk at the Times. After a stint at CNN and a brief return to the Times, she took a trainee reporter job at PA in 2006.
"Working at the UK wire service was great training and allowed me to cover everything from general news to showbiz to economics. It also gave me good grounding in video reporting," she said.
"A lot of people just pick the country or region they want to report from, gather up as many contacts as they can and just go. My route was to try and get as broadly qualified as possible and then keep asking around. It took about a year to land this job, but the persistence paid off!"
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