By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
Han Shin-ha, 36, a volunteer worker dispatched by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to Tanzania, has landed a full-time professorship at Mkwawa University, Tanzania's national university.
According to KOICA, a state-run agency sending volunteers to developing countries, Han started teaching molecular and cellular biology as a professor at the beginning of the month.
She spent 25 months until August this year, teaching students biology as a volunteer at the university before being appointed as a professor. She led a project to build a biology laboratory for the university in July, which was widely reported by the press in the country.
She studied food and nutrition at Sahmyook University, and got her doctorate degree in molecular biology from Seoul Women's University.
``I think it's just a continuation of my work as a volunteer,'' she was quoted as saying by KOICA.
A public relations officer at KOICA, Yeon Je-ho, said Han was the first volunteer to get media attention for that. ``KOICA receives similar requests quite a lot from local institutes of the country where the volunteers work,'' Yeon said.