Engineering PhD candidate Kelly Michaelsen has been named a 2013-14 New Hampshire-Vermont Schweitzer Fellow — one of approximately 220 graduate students throughout the U.S. who will partner with local community-based organizations to develop and implement year-long, mentored service projects that improve the health and well-being of underserved people.

Kelly Michaelsen

Michaelsen's project will work to foster connections between students and seniors through intergenerational programming at the Bugbee Senior Center.

This year’s class of Schweitzer Fellows will be inducted during the 100th anniversary year of the building of The Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon (known as French Equatorial Africa when the hospital was built in 1913).

“Our Fellows were selected after a competitive process, and they have signed up for a demanding year. They are expected to design and implement projects that will address the root causes of health inequities, and they will be doing this while also fulfilling their academic responsibilities,” said New Hampshire/Vermont Schweitzer Fellowship Program Director Rebecca Torrey. “Under the close guidance of community mentors, their projects — each of which is set in a community-based organization that serves vulnerable populations — are expected to make measurable differences on issues ranging from childhood literacy to diabetes to behavioral health.”

Upon completion of her fellowship year, Michaelsen will become a Schweitzer Fellow for Life — and join a vibrant network of nearly 2,700 individuals who are skilled in, and committed to, addressing the health and social needs of underserved people throughout their careers as professionals.

About the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship