Audra Ang was a Beijing-based correspondent for The Associated Press from 2002 through 2009. In between meals of "saliva chicken" and "fragrant and spicy potato shreds," she covered disasters, disease and dissent while chronicling the breakneck social and economic changes that were convulsing China. Her assignments led her to sleep in a rat-infested hotel room, climb earthquake rubble seven stories high, interview monks in the shadows of Tibetan monasteries and scour chicken farms during outbreaks of bird flu. Ang also reported from other parts of the region, including North Korea, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. She is a graduate of the University of Washington, where she received degrees in psychology and creative writing. She started as a reporter with the AP in Seattle and worked on the national editing desk in New York before being posted to China. She was a 2009-2010 Nieman fellow at Harvard University and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies. Ang grew up in Singapore and regularly eats unseemly amounts of food at one sitting.Author photo by Greg Baker.