Hana Burkly (NHS’19, G’20), who runs a student-run, not-for-profit organization that recruits university students to teach English in underserved schools around the world, is also a boxer.
The 501(c)(3) organization she runs, Learning Enterprises, also fosters cultural exchange.
Burkly says Learning Enterprises has worked with more than 20 United States and European universities, sent volunteers to 12 countries on four continents, and averages 150 volunteers per year.
“Heading this organization has shaped my view of education as a keystone in reducing inequities and bringing people out of poverty,” says Burkly of Oakton, Virginia.
She also competes for Georgetown’s club boxing team, and is the winner of the 2018 USIBA national title in the novice 125-pound female division.
A global health major at the School of Nursing & Health Studies, Burkly plans to stay on at Georgetown for a fifth year to earn her master’s degree in global health from the university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
To learn more about the American educational system, she applied for and was accepted to Teach For America’s (TFA) summer Accelerate Fellowship, for which participants travel across the country to TFA partner communities to forge new relationships and help solve important issues alongside social and private sector leaders.
She also works as a research assistant at the Women’s Interagency HIV Study.
“My favorite classes so far have been epidemiology, political economics of health and development and research methods,” she says of the global health major. “I appreciate the abundance of internship and research opportunities. The professors work with us as mentors to help pair us with organizations that are making an impact in public health both in the United States and abroad. This is an excellent opportunity to become familiar with organizations where we may work after graduation.”