Earlier this month she went on a 12-day course in Switzerland to learn about dealing with corpses in disaster zones. She'd been home only two days when she was asked to go to Guinea to help bury Ebola victims.
She had to decline - her resignation from the police doesn't take effect until February, which is also when her youngest child heads off to boarding school - but when the next call comes in, she'll be ready.
Ms Knowler said the humanitarian aspect of Red Cross work appealed to her, but the biggest attraction was the personal challenge. Although born in Kaitaia she grew up in Papua New Guinea and has twice been deployed as a police officer to Bougainville, an island wracked by civil war, so she has no qualms about working in the developing world.
"I like the fact that you've got to get stuck in and make things happen, even if you don't have the resources."
Ms Knowler expects to be sent to natural disasters - tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes - and conflict zones around the world for six to 12 months at a time.
She is keen to work in countries affected by war. Under the Geneva Convention, the Red Cross checks military detention centres to ensure prisoners are properly treated. It also helps reunite families, for example in South Sudan where many families are split among different refugee camps.
A key attraction of the Red Cross was its emphasis on neutrality and impartiality. "I could end up helping people on either side of a conflict, including the side that might be seen in the West as the bad guys. Unlike police work, there [are] no goodies and baddies."
If she does end up going to West Africa she has no fears of Ebola, saying Red Cross training, equipment and safety procedures are "top notch". She had met two Kiwi nurses just back from West Africa whose advice was reassuring.
"There's a lot of myths around Ebola. It's often fatal but it's relatively hard to catch. Far more people in Africa die of malaria every day."
Ms Knowler - who made a name for herself nationally by her use of Facebook to solve crimes such as the case of the infamous "buttcrack bandit" - said she would miss the teamwork of being in the police, and felt proud of her achievements.
In particular she was proud of her time as a member of the Kaitaia CIB dealing with victims of sexual abuse. In one case the abuse had occurred more than 50 years earlier; the victim did not want the then elderly offender sent to jail - she just wanted closure and to be believed.
"The change in her was obvious. Her whole body lifted," Ms Knowler said.
