Student lands prestigious internship at World Health Organization

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Posted June 24, 2010

By Kyle Glennie

Karolina Kowalewski will travel to Geneva, Switzerland for her WHO internshipOver 10,000 people apply annually and only 5% are successful.  So how exactly did Karolina Kowalewski land an internship at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland?

“Basically it came from working at PHIRC and networking.”

Karolina Kowalewski is being slightly modest.  The recent Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) graduate worked part-time at PHIRC–the Population Health Intervention Research Centre at the Faculty of Medicine–while she earned her BHSc degree.  Fortunately for her she was taken under the wing of several PHIRC researchers, namely Alan Shiell, PhD, and Penny Hawe, PhD.

“I had mentioned to Dr. Shiell that I was interested in doing an internship and he really got the ball rolling for me,” recalls Kowalewski.  While that may have started the process, there were still more hurdles to clear before she was chosen for the internship.  Shiell says Kowalewski’s hard work and intelligence are the real reasons for her success.

“Karolina has been working in PHIRC for a number of years in various capacities as a research assistant, and she’s very bright, keen to learn and always a team player,” Shiell says. “Through personal and professional connections with the WHO, I knew there was interest in having an intern support our investigations into the economics of health promotion. It was very easy to put the two things together, she’s a perfect fit.”

Kowalewski will help both Shiell and Dr. KC Tang on their economic evaluation research, which seeks to determine how to best promote health given the limited resources available. “We know there are difficult choices to make regarding health promotion and we seek to evaluate the costs and health consequences of those choices to ensure the best decisions are made,” explains Shiell.

After the six month internship Kowalewski believes she’ll likely return home to Calgary and enroll in medical school.  “My interests lie in global health so this opportunity at the WHO is absolutely incredible.”