2013 Pulaski Day Parade Military Co-Marshall

Lt. Cmdr. Marie Wojcik Wolanin, M.D.

Lieutenant Commander Marie Wojcik Wolanin was born and raised in Bensalem, Pa.  She graduated from LaSalle University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology.  She was awarded a full scholarship to medical school at the Drexel University College of Medicine through the U.S. Navy Health Professionals Scholarship Program and was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve.  Upon graduation from medical school, she was promoted to Lieutenant.

In 2007, she began her medical career as a military reservist.  She completed a one-year internal medicine internship at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pa.  She then completed three more years of her residency in neurology at Hahnemann University Hospital in center city Philadelphia, Pa, finishing in 2010.

Dr. Wolanin began active duty service in the Navy as a Lieutenant in the Medical Corps, working as a general neurologist.  She was assigned as one of the first neurology staff members at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, where she has worked for the past two years.  She was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and appointed Chief of the Department of Neurology at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, where she continues to work at present.  Dr. Wolanin treats active duty service members of all branches of the military who possess a wide variety of neurological conditions.  Her patients include military reservists, veterans, government workers, military family members and a large number of Wounded Warriors returning from Afghanistan with traumatic brain and other nerve injuries.

Lt. Cmdr. Wolanin has always been proud of her Polish heritage, which has been an important part of her life since childhood.  She attended the Adam Mickiewicz Polish Language School at the Associated Polish Home in Philadelphia as a child.  In 1997, she served as a teaching assistant at an English Language camp in Lomza, Poland, sponsored by the Kosciuszko Foundation.  While in college, she was a member of the Polish Intercollegiate Dance Group (PKM) and performed in the Adam Mularczyk Polish Theatre Group production of “Jaselka.”  In 2000, she was awarded the Tomaszkiewicz-Florio scholarship to attend the Jagiellonian University Summer Study Program in Krakow, Poland.

As fate would have it, Dr. Wolanin’s future husband, Alfred, was also a student in the program that summer.  They had their first date in the Old Town Square in Krakow that summer and were married in Bensalem, Pa, two years later.

She and her husband of 11 years have three children. Although they have moved frequently, they have remained active members of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Kosciuszko Foundation for ten years.  As a family, they enjoy attending as many Polish events as possible in their free time.   Lieutenant Commander Marie Wolanin and her husband are proud to teach their children about their rich and beautiful Polish heritage.