Until August 2012, Shannon Kowalski was a program officer at the Open Society Foundations Public Health Program, where she worked to strengthen the involvement of civil society in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria’s governance and program implementation.
She is a member of the delegation representing private foundations on the Global Fund’s board of directors and serves on portfolio and implementation committee. Before joining the Foundations, she was program officer for global advocacy at Family Care International, where she advocated for policies that protect women’s and young people’s sexual and reproductive rights at the international and regional levels. Kowalski has also worked at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She was a member of the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights for five years, and chair of the steering committee from 2004 to 2005.
She holds a BA in human rights and international development from Hunter College, the City University of New York, and is a candidate for a master’s in public administration in health policy and management at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.