Stacey Kowal ‘05 of Rochester has been selected to receive a 2005 Marshall Scholarship, which pays for two years of postgraduate study in any academic discipline at a United Kingdom university.
The opportunity comes after a highly successful junior year during which Kowal received Truman and Udall scholarships worth $35,000 for academic expenses.
She also won a $5,000 Udall Scholarship in her sophomore year.
“I went into the process hoping with all of my heart that I would win and now I am still in shock,” Kowal said. “I know that the rest of my life will forever be different.”
Kowal says her experience at Alma College has defined her future. “Alma College has been positively integral in ensuring my success. Alma does in fact offer a liberal arts education — a way of instilling knowledge beyond academic guidelines and core curriculum. My courses, research and relationships with professors all worked to teach me how to lead, how to use my abilities to make a difference, how to have courage in my convictions, and how to reach goals that I thought were far beyond my abilities.”
Dr. Ed Lorenz, Reid-Knox Professor of History and professor of political science, advised Kowal on her Udall scholarships and has insight to her success. “Stacey is a very good student made much better by the interdisciplinary opportunities that Alma is so good at offering,” Lorenz said. “She is an amazing kid — a mathematics major with an applied interest in environmental health. That’s a potent combination. The world needs few math majors. It needs few history majors. What it needs are people with general excellent education who can apply, in Stacey’s case, math to health data and understand both mathematically and biologically what the results mean.”
Kowal is interested in applying biostatistics methods to evaluate ways of identifying the impacts of contamination and the efficacy of remediation approaches.
Kowal plans to pursue her master’s degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and then apply to Johns Hopkins medical school. She wants to collaborate with the Bloomberg School of Public Health to gain opportunities in international public health research.
After a residency in community or rural health, she plans to join the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), a two-year postgraduate program through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program trains doctors, medical scientists, biostatisticians and other specialists in investigation and solution methods in international and domestic epidemiologic public health emergencies.
After her extensive training, Kowal plans to work for the World Health Organization (WHO) and focus on the implementation and design of international health policy at the country level. After four to six years of fieldwork she plans to pursue a policy-making position at the WHO.
The award attests to the efforts Alma College has put into identifying and preparing students of high academic caliber capable of engaging societal and environmental issues on a global scale. Alma’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Michael Selmon says the College works hard to educate the students who will be the next leaders of our communities, our nation and our world. “Stacey’s award is clearly a measure of the quality of her achievements, in that sense it is unique. It is also a reflection of the quality of the education she has had at Alma, and of the opportunities that she has had in her years here to apply her expertise in ways that have made a difference in the world. That sort of education, and a similar set of opportunities, are available to all of our students,” Selmon said.
Using an Alma College Currie Scholarship in 2003, she performed graduate-level research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a graduate financial award from UWM. She also has studied environmental health in Brazil.
As president of Students United for Nature, she was instrumental in initiating a volunteer recycling program at Alma College and integrated her mathematics major and public health minor into other environmental projects.
Kowal is the daughter of Garry and Karen Kowal and a 2000 graduate of Almont High School. She has received recognition for conducting epidemiological research on the effects of toxic pollutants in Gratiot County on human and animal populations. Currently she is serving two internships in Lansing for community health agencies. During Winter Term, she is studying at the University of Westminster in London.
Since 1997 with help from Alma’s Nationally Competitive Scholarship Committee, the College has had 44 winners, finalists, semi-finalists and alternates for top national scholarships. The 21 scholarships awarded totaled approximately $700,000.
Established in 1953, the Marshall Scholarships are named in honor of U.S. Secretary of State General George C. Marshall to express Britain’s gratitude for economic assistance received through the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Funded by the British government and administered by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, the Marshall Scholarship program has become the largest single program for Americans studying in Britain, and one of the most prestigious.
– Skip Traynor
