Marie Colvin
I'm not sure why I regularly worry about issues far beyond my regional geography and connection, but knowing that some people die because they have a burning desire to tell the truth about other peoples' suffering is thoroughly sobering.
To my knowledge, I've not examined any of Marie Colvin's work, but Colvin was awarded the Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism. The Gellhorn prize "challenges secrecy and mendacity [lies] in public affairs" and "raises 'forgotten' issues of public importance, without fear or favour." (Aside: Gellhorn had a really interesting life too, I live similarly to how she did)
I noticed Colven on the Gellhorn website Saturday (when I started writing this post), and that she had an eyepatch--the result of a rocket propelled grenade intentionally fired at her in Sri Lanka--and that she was killed in Syria this March according to the Guardian UK.
There's a conflicting account about how she died on wikipedia, but in the spirit of her interests, that shouldn't matter--Marie's a strong woman worth knowing about in any case and a killing of this kind is still an injustice. What strikes me about her is that she's way under the radar, but I think her efforts are as heroic as many noted civil rights activists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On Biology and Compassion
