At the first anti-war rally Mandy Gatewood attended as a teenager in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, she accidentally caught her hair aflame during the candlelight vigil.  However, the disfigurement of her tresses did not deter her from working to understand the effects of war on populations.  After studying English and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky, Mandy turned her attention to post-conflict zones.  She worked for a year in a public school in Kashgar, East Turkestan / western China, an Islamic area colonized by the Chinese government that experiences regular conflict between Uighur separatists and the Chinese military.  Later, Mandy volunteered for 6 months for PEPY (Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself), an NGO working to increase student health and environmental literacy in rural Cambodia.  Because PEPY funds its programs by leading cycling tours through Cambodia's back roads, Mandy also led a cycling expedition across 400 km of Cambodia's red dirt trails to teach health lessons to rural Cambodian youth.  Mandy likes baking bread, biking, reading fiction and nonfiction, and the fact that the UN Security Council finally recognizes rape as a war tactic. She will be starting her second year in the 2-year program.