The inductees embody the Palliser motto which encourages us all to "Dream and Believe; Learn and Achieve. She completed a residency in Family Medicine, and worked for eight years as a locum family physician in various communities across Alberta.
During that time, she became interested in health systems and preventive medicine. She worked closely with Alberta Health and the Chief Medical Officer of Health to ensure that requirements to limit the spread of COVID were followed across the province, such as limits on the number of people gathering together, and advice to essential services on how to operate more safely during the pandemic. As the pandemic evolves, she is focused on incorporating learnings from the pandemic response into her work in supporting safe and healthy communities through promotion, prevention and protection.
Kathryn has a strong interest in education. While in high school and university, Kathryn taught private piano lessons while working towards her Royal Conservatory of Toronto ARCT certification in piano performance. She has since applied her interest in education towards teaching future public health physicians through her recent contributions as the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency program director at University of Alberta. Kathryn is currently the acting Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Specialty Committee for Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and is helping to lead the development of a competency-based curriculum for the specialty.
Kathryn enjoys spending time with her husband Ryan and young adult children Elizabeth and Mark. She enjoys cycling, Zumba dance fitness classes, and trying new recipes in her kitchen. Please view Dr. Koliaska's acceptance speech of August 24, here. Too old at 14 to start luge, and too young to start bobsleigh, Elisabeth was encouraged to take up skeleton at 14 years of age after her father, Jeff, was on a flight with the Canadian luge squad.
She quickly turned heads around the world. Elisabeth was fast tracked on the pathway to the podium. Elisabeth blasted onto the World Cup scene in with a silver medal in her first race in Lake Placid. She followed that up by winning on her home track in Calgary. Her rookie season was capped off with an impressive bronze-medal finish at the World Championships in Winterberg, Germany. She accomplished the first step of her Olympic dream by representing Canada at the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, just weeks after finishing third in the Overall World Cup skeleton standings.
