Morton Grove’s Irena Petryk has won both a Rhodes Scholarship and an Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship and has had internships at both the White House and the U.S. State Department.
While some would consider that a dazzling set of achievements for a lifetime, Petryk experienced them all in 2022.
“I feel really lucky,” said Petryk, 20, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, after Niles West High School honored her as a distinguished alum at a recent Board of Education meeting.
Born in Chicago and raised in Morton Grove, Petryk, currently is a senior at Northwestern University double-majoring in Economics and International Studies. As she closes in on graduation, Petryk is working as a research assistant at Northwestern’s Global Poverty Research Lab as part of an overall goal of one day working as a U.S. State Department attorney.
Some of the first seeds of Petryk’s interest in law occurred when she was a Niles West High School student. She was the first freshman to make the school’s varsity Mock Trial team, according to her coach Jason Stanford.
“It’s clear that she has been on the road to becoming a Rhodes Scholar since I met her (in) her freshman year,” Stanford said at the Board meeting.
As he spoke that night, Stanford recalled about a conversation he had with Petryk competing on a team with all seniors. Moreover, there was her schoolwork to consider, as she was taking honors and Advanced Placement classes.
Petryk quickly put her coach at ease.
“She stared at me and said, “I got this,” Stanford said, drawing laughter from Petryk and others in the audience.
After graduating from Niles West in 2020, where she was also a first chair cellist, Petryk enrolled at Northwestern.
In Evanston, she has continued to succeed academically leading to the Rhodes Scholarship announcement last November, which was preceded by the recognition in September from the Voyager program, which is administered by the Obama Foundation.
“I think it speaks a lot to the Obama Foundation commitment to supporting young people who want to enter public service,” she said.
Besides academic success, public service and community activism is also a main component of Petryk’s background. In high school, she volunteered with Expanding Lives, a Chicago-based charity advocating for women in the African countries of Niger and Benin supporting educational goals.
During her U.S. State Department internship last year, Petryk continued her previous efforts on working for women as her responsibilities included a brief period concentrating on the women of Afghanistan following the Taliban once again taking control of the nation.
Later in 2022, Petryk collected data and performed statistical analysis during a 14-week White House internship with the Council of Economic Advisors, which provides the president with advice on domestic and international economic policies.
While 2022 included many happy moments for Petryk, there were times of anguish given the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She still has relatives in western Ukraine, where the fighting has not been as intense in comparison to the eastern side, closer to the Russian border.
“I was very sad at the beginning,” Petryk said of the war that started almost a year ago. “I was angry as it was senseless violence justified by lies. It speaks to the danger of how democracies can backslide and individual leaders can threaten peace and stability in other parts of the world.”
To do what she could, Petryk was part of a group effort that raised $20,000 for Ukrainian humanitarian organizations, as she is a founding member of Northwestern for Ukraine, a student advocacy group.
After graduation later this year, Petryk plans to intern at the U.S. Mission to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
“It is important for us to promote inclusive, sustainable economic growth,” she said. “That applies to both developing economies and advanced economies.”
After she completes that internship, she hopes to start working toward a master’s degree in International Relations from Oxford University capitalizing on her Rhodes scholarship. She expects to hear in March whether she has been accepted from Oxford.
Away from her academic pursuits, Petryk likes to bake cream puffs and cookies, read, ride her bicycle and work out at the gym. Ultimately, she eventually aspires to being a foreign policy advisor in conjunction with a law degree.
“With the internships I have had, I saw the power the U.S. has in terms of, if not changing the circumstances of other countries, then influencing them for the better,” she said. “I’d love to be a part of that.”
