If you recognize Liya Kebede, it could be because of many reasons. Early in her career, she was chosen by Tom Ford to walk exclusively for Gucci. In May 2002, Vogue Paris not only put her on the cover, but also dedicated the issue to her, featuring her in four out of six stories. But that was just the beginning of this supermodel's path.

Liya was born in Ethiopia on January 3, 1980, and was a studious young girl at the French Lycée school until she was spotted by an agent. And, as they say, the rest was history. She quickly moved to Paris once her schooling was finished to pursue a career on the runways.

Since then, Liya has been featured on the cover of countless fashion magazines, including many international magazines such as Vogue, Vogue Nippon, Vogue Paris, Vogue España, as well as V Magazine, Flair, i-D, and TIME's Style & Design, and was featured in the Black issue of Vogue Italia. But her modeling work doesn't stop there. Liya has posed for campaigns such as Tiffany's, Dolce & Gabbana, Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, and was the first model of color to become a face for Estée Lauder in 2003.

Always one to give back, Liya was not only named the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, but she went a step further and created the Liya Kebede Foundation, which brings awareness to women's plight in the developing world who suffer and/or die during childbirth because of the lack of necessary hospital care. For her charity work, she won the U.N. Day Award in 2005. In her speech, she told the audience: "Every day we hear about the dangers of cancer, heart disease, and AIDS. But how many of us realize that, in much of the world, the act of giving life to a child is still the biggest killer of women of childbearing age? That over half a million die every year? Or that 3 million babies are stillborn? Or that another 4 million die during the first days and weeks of life?"

In between caring for other mothers and stomping the runway, she married Kassy Kebede in 2000 and began a family. The couple has two children, son Suhul, who was born in 2001, and had daughter Raee in 2005.

Clearly this supermodel isn't going anywhere, as Anna Wintour recently chose her as one of the models featured on the cover of the massive model-obsessed issue of Vogue for May 2009 to celebrate the Met’s Costume Institute Gala "The Model as Muse" exhibit.