Steering clear from the usual suspects of magazine cover girl options, the Australian Women’s Weekly puts the spotlight on burns survivor Turia Pitt. Turia, a mining engineer, suffered burns to her body when she got trapped in a bushfire during a 100km ultra-marathon in Western Australia in September of 2011.

Turia is now taking up her masters degree and is also a motivational speaker and a published author. Though many thought all hope was lost, she rises from the ashes and defies doctors’ expectations. Just recently she biked from Sydney to Uluru, swam a 20km of Lake Argyle, and made her way down the Great Wall of China, all of which to raise funds for reconstructive surgery charity Interplast.