Magdalena Mazurek-Nuovo arrived in New York City 10 years ago from Poland for “romantic reasons”. She was born and raised in Poland where she studied Polish philology and fostered her interests in Polish literature, history, and art. When she came to New York City, Magda, as she’s often called, sought a career in promoting Polish culture but found it difficult to find a paying position. After working other smaller jobs, she found an opening at the Kosciuszko Foundation and applied immediately. She is currently the Director of Cultural Affairs and thus promotes Polish culture through event planning among other duties. Magda enjoys applying her knowledge of her roots for the foundation.
Mariola Szenk was born in Elk, Poland and moved to the US at age 8 with her family. She explained that her parents were part of the educated elite who couldn’t find jobs in their discipline and therefore decided to move to the US. During high school, she attended Polish Supplementary School in Clark, NJ from which she gained knowledge in Polish culture, history and language. In addition to graduating high school, she passed an exit exam, ‘matura’, for the Polish after school program.
Mariola went on to attend Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College from 2007 to 2012, from where she graduated with a degree in Physics and Economics. During her college years, she conducted research at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, M.I.T., and MSKCC in the fields of systems biology, bioengineering and genetics. She won several awards including Rosalyn Yalow award, Catalyst Scholarship, McNulty Scholarship, iGEM world championship, etc. Currently she is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook.
In 2008, Mariola received the Tomaszkiewicz-Florio Scholarship from the Kosciuszko Foundation for study abroad in Krakow, Poland. In addition, she was awarded a stipend for her first year of graduate studies at Stony Brook University. She states that she has no other key involvement with the foundation but tries to sustain her Polish language abilities by reading articles in Polish and plans on becoming involved with the Polish community of Stony Brook University.
