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Devanna De La Puente (B.A. in business, 2003) recently won the 2015 Marsh Award for Innovation in Peacemaking and Peacekeeping in recognition of her work in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence in the context of disasters and conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.

The award, made in association with Wilton Park, the British forum for global change, was presented at a ceremony in Bangkok by the British Ambassador to Thailand.

Created in the United Kingdom by Brian Marsh, chairman of the Marsh Christian Trust, the Marsh Award honors “extraordinary, unsung heroes.” It recognizes an individual from outside the UK whose work makes an “innovative difference” to areas of conflict and peacemaking.

Ms. De La Puente works for the United Nations Population Fund and has played a key role as the Interagency Regional Emergency Gender-Based Violence Advisor for Asia and the Pacific as part of a global effort to protect women.

Most recently she led violence prevention and response efforts for the UN Population Fund and other partner organizations following Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu in March and the Nepal earthquake in April.

Other crisis situations she has been involved in include Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, conflict and communal violence in Myanmar, and long-running conflict situations exacerbated by natural disasters in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Jim Karpen is a writer by trade, with a special focus on technology. He has a Ph.D. in English and studied the impact of the computerization of language. In addition to writing for iPhone Life magazine, he has also been writing a column about the Internet for the Iowa Source since 1994. He also edits and publishes the MUM Review.