She currently works as the vice-chair of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, a position she has held since May 2017.

Her nomination was first leaked to the media through unnamed sources last spring and was only officially confirmed by the White House on Tuesday.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Wos is the daughter of Paul Zenon Wos, who was liberated from the Flossenburg concentration camp by U.S. troops in April 1945. Her mother, Wanda Krystyna Wos, survived Nazi child slave labour camps in Germany.

Wos studied for her medical degree at the Warsaw Medical Academy, later completing a fellowship in pulmonary medicine in New York City.

From 2013 to 2015 Wos served as North Carolina’s Secretary of the Department of Health, overseeing a budget of $20 billion.

Wos replaces Kelly Craft, a Kentucky native who began serving as ambassador to Canada in October 2017.

Craft and her husband, billionaire coal-mining magnate Joe Craft, donated about $265,000 to a committee backing Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump said in a pair of tweets referencing her appointment to the UN posting that Craft «has done an outstanding job representing our Nation» and he has «no doubt that, under her leadership, our country will be represented at the highest level.»