Notable Members

Among the notable Members of the Collegium are:

    

1. Prof. Roald Hoffmann, born in 1937 in Zloczow, Poland. Having survived the war, he came to the U.S. in 1949 and studied chemistry at Columbia and Harvard Universities (Ph.D. 1962). Since 1965 he is at Cornell University, now as the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters. He has received many of the honors of his profession, including the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui).

"Applied theoretical chemistry" is the way Roald Hoffmann likes to characterize the particular blend of computations stimulated by experiment and the construction of generalized models, of frameworks for understanding, that is his contribution to chemistry. The pedagogical perspective is very strong in his work. MORE

Prof. Hoffmann is an Honorary Advisory Member of the Kosciuszko Foundation Collegium of Eminent Scientists. In 2016 he gave an inaugural lecture starting the Collegium's lecture series. On December 3, 2020, he moderated a panel discussion between Prof. Maria Siemionow, Prof. Keiko Kawashima, and Ms. Susan Quinn during the Foundation's webinar Maria Sklodowska Curie – A Pioneer for Women in Science?

2. Andrzej Viktor "Andrew" Schally (born 30 November 1926) is an American endocrinologist of Polish ancestry, who was a co-recipient with Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This recognized his research in the discovery that the hypothalamus controls hormone production and release by the pituitary gland which controls the regulation of other hormones in the body. MORE

3. Jack W. Szostak, Ph.D. is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Alexander A. Rich Distinguished Investigator at Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2009, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, Dr. Szostak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the structure of telomeres and revealing their function and mechanism by which they protect chromosomes from degradation during the successive cell divisions.

Dr. Szostak received his B.Sc. from McGill University in Montreal in 1972 and then conducted his graduate research at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., obtaining his Ph.D. in 1977. Dr. Szostak moved to the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in 1979, and then to Massachusetts General Hospital in 1984. During the 1980s he carried out research on the genetics and biochemistry of DNA recombination, which led to the double-strand-break repair model for meiotic recombination.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Professor Szostak received numerous highly prestigious awards including the United States National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology (1994), Hans Sigrist Prize from the University of Bern, Switzerland (1997), Genetics Society of America Medal (2000), and Dr. H.P. Heineken Prize in Biophysics and Biochemistry (2008).

Currently, Dr. Szostak's research interests have focused on the challenges of understanding the origin of life on Earth and the construction of artificial cellular life. A more extensive description of the current interests of Prof. Szostak can be found at: https://origins.harvard.edu/pages/research-spotlight-jack-szostak or: https://molbio.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/

4. Frank Wilczek the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Co-founder of the KF Collegium of Eminent Scientists, and an Honorary Member of the Collegium's Board of Advisors just published a greatly inspiring and beautifully illustrated book, „A Beautiful Question. Finding Natures Deep Design", that should attract not only scientists but a much wider audience. http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Question-Finding-Natures-Design/dp/1594205264. This is a mind-boggling book inspired by Wilczek's groundbreaking work in quantum physics that looks for a deeper order of beauty in nature. The "beautiful question" has been mused throughout human history by artists as well as scientists from Plato and Pythagoras and is presented by Wilczek as a compass directing him to every major advance in his career, i.e.,:  the intuition that the universe embodies beautiful forms of symmetry, harmony, balance, proportion, and economy. There are other meanings of "beauty," but this is the deep logic of the universe - and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. Frank Wilczek was an invited guest of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences (July 21, 2015) where he presented a dazzling lecture outlining the essence of the book and addressing how  „beauty" and „elegance" encompass the whole universe all the way down to the quantum level. Indeed, Dr. Wilczek's lecture pointed out how remarkably are intertwined our concepts about beauty and art with a scientific understanding of the cosmos.

 5. William J (Bill) Borucki, another space scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center; principal investigator for NASA's Kepler mission, a pioneer in the quest for detection of life-hospitable planets. He designed the heat shields for the Apollo program spacecraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Borucki;

6. Wit Busza, Professor of Physics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Busza studies the field of quark–gluon plasma interactions and has been the spokesperson for the PHOBOS experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_Busza;

7. Artur Bartlomiej Chmielewski, Space scientist, NASA Project Manager of the US Rosetta Project, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He has managed several flight projects at JPL: the Space Technology 8 mission, Mars Telecommunication Orbiter Rendezvous Experiment, Space Technology 6 mission, Gossamer Program, Inflatable Antenna Flight Experiment and the Cryocooler Flight Experiment. He was also a Project Element Manager on Deep Space 1 mission and a power system engineer for the Galileo, Ulysses and Cassini spacecrafts. He is responsible for development of 9 space instruments and several new technology devices. He also managed the flagship pre-project - space radio astronomy for the ARISE  mission.

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Bart%C5%82omiej_Chmielewski

8. Michael, J. Demkowicz, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a young physicist whose recent discovery to modify glass to have the properties of "rubber" was highlighted in Scientific American. 

http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/profile/demkowicz;

9. Henryk Iwaniec, the 2015 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences was awarded to Henryk Iwaniec, Rutgers University, US, and Gerd Faltings, the Max Planck Institute, Germany, for "their introduction and development of fundamental tools in number theory, that allows them and others to resolve some longstanding classical problems. "Established under the auspices of Mr. Run Run Shaw in November 2002, the Prize „honors individuals, regardless of race, nationality, gender and religious belief, who have recently achieved significant breakthrough in academic and scientific research or applications and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind." The Shaw Prize consists of three annual prizes in Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences, each bearing a monetary award of one million US dollars. 

http://www.shawprize.org/en/

10. Marc Kamionkowski, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include particle physics, dark matter, inflation, the cosmic microwave background, and gravitational waves.  He is known primarily for his work on supersymmetric dark matter and the cosmic microwave background. He was awarded the US Department of Energy's 2006 E. O. Lawrence Award in High Energy and Nuclear Physics for "his theoretical analyses demonstrating that precise observations of the cosmic microwave background can lead to a deep understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe, thereby motivating a series of increasingly precise cosmological experiments." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Kamionkowski;

11. Ludwik Kowalski, Professor (Emeritus) Montclair State University, NJ. He is the author of nearly 100 scholarly papers on physics, a textbook on physics, and two books exposing the inhumaneness of Communism/Stalinism. One of them is an autobiography based on a diary he kept between 1946 and 2004 (in the USSR, Poland, France, and the USA) and illustrates his evolution from one extreme to another—from devoted Stalinist to active anti-communist. "Stalin's Hell on Earth". Wasteland Press. 2008.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwik_Kowalski;

12. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski won the 2015 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences. This international prize awarded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation is given every two years to recognize accomplishments in different areas of chemistry. Dr. Matyjaszewski received the prize of $250,000, a medal, and a citation for excellence in "Making Molecules and Materials." Dr. Matyjaszewski is best known for developing atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a process cited by the Dreyfus Foundation as being the most important advance in polymer synthesis in half a century. ATRP allows scientists to precisely control the size and architecture of polymers, and this has paved the way for the creation of thousands of important new materials such as coatings, adhesives, sealants, and smart materials being investigated for use in the industrial, environmental and biomedical fields. Over 50 multinational corporations have already bought the licensed technology and are incorporating ATRP into the development of new products. Products created using ATRP are expected to have a commercial value estimated at more than $20 billion.

13. Stefan Z. Miska, The Jonathan Detwiler Endowed Chair Professor of McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering and Director of Tulsa University Drilling Research Projects (TUDRP) at The University of Tulsa (TU). He has published over 170 technical papers and contributed to several books. He was involved in the successful design and development of a downhole, turbine-type motor for air drilling and has been instrumental in the development of research facilities for wellbore hydraulics at simulated downhole conditions. http://www.tudrp.utulsa.edu/personnel_faculty.html

14. Zbigniew (Roger) Mrowiec, the Director of the Stem Cell Laboratory for the Elie Katz Umbilical Cord Blood Program, The New Jersey Cord Blood Bank,  http://www.communitybloodservices.org/cb_staff.php and the consultant for the Polish Bank of Stem Cells from Cord Blood  https://www.pbkm.pl/rada-naukowo-medyczna. He is the pioneer in the use of cord blood as a source of stem cells.

15. Jerzy Leszczynski, Professor of Chemistry and President's Distinguished Fellow, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS and the founding Director for the Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Interactions (NSF-CREST Center). He is an author of numerous publications and book chapters, and an Editor of 7 books in a series devoted to computational chemistry. 

http://ccmsi.us/leszczynski/

16. Wanda J. Orlikowski, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines technologies in the workplace, with a particular focus on the ongoing relations among technologies, organizing structures, cultural norms, control mechanisms, communication, and work practices. 

http://cci.mit.edu/wanda.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Orlikowski;

17. Piotr Piecuch, a physical chemist who holds the title of University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA and supervises a group whose research focuses on theoretical and computational chemistry as well as theoretical and computational physics. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Piecuch

18. Krzysztof Reiss. Professor and Director of Neurological Cancer Research, Louisiana State University. Dr. Reiss is a Professor within the LSU`s hematology/oncology section of the department of medicine and director of the neurological cancer research program which he co-founded with Luis Del Valle, MD. This initiative cuts across disciplinary as well as institutional boundaries to pursue a range of neurological malignancies, from childhood brain tumors to Merkel Cell Carcinoma, a rare and very aggressive cancer in which neuroendocrine tumor cells develop on or just beneath the skin and or in hair follicles. http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Krzysztof_Reiss;

19. Krzysztof Piotr Rykaczewski. Nuclear Physicist. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Dr. Rykaczewski's research is mostly related to the decay spectroscopy of exotic radioactive nuclei.  His work has resulted in the identification and first decay study of over 50 new isotopes. 

https://physics.aps.org/authors/krzysztof_p_rykaczewski;

20. Tomasz Skwarnicki of Syracuse University, is using the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is credited with the discovery of the "pentaquark". First predicted to exist in the 1960s but, much like the Higgs boson particle before it, the pentaquark eluded science for decades until its detection at the LHC. The discovery, which amounts to a new form of matter was made by the LHC experiments designed by Tomasz Skwarnicki.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33517492

http://futurism.com/meet-the-pentaquark-the-newest-fundamental-type-of-particle-discovered-by-cern/;

21. Bronislaw L. Slomiany,  Professor, Department of Oral Biology, Rutgers University a world-renowned researcher specializing in biology and function of salivary and gastrointestinal secretions; structure, macromolecular organization; and the role of mucus in mucosal defense. Dr. Slomiany is a member (Foreign) of the Polish Academy of Sciences. 

http://sdm.rutgers.edu/research/center/bl-slomiany.html

22. David Julian Volsky, Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Mount Sinai Hospital, Director of Molecular Virology Laboratory, Dept. of Medicine, Mount Sinai St. Lukes and Roosevelt Hospital, York, NY. He is the leading researcher in the field of viral diseases,   who specializes in HIV.  

http://www.mountsinai.org/profiles/david-julian-volsky

23. Susan Wojcicki, is an American technology executive. Currently, she is Google's Senior Vice President of Advertising & Commerce and CEO of YouTube.  She developed AdSense, which became Google's second-largest source of revenue. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Wojcicki;

It deserves further mention that Susan is the fourth member of the Wojcicki family who is a Member of our Collegium. Her father Stanley Wojcicki, physicist, is the Professor (Emeritus) at Stanford University, her sister Anne Wojcicki is the co-founder and a Member of the Board of Directors of the 23andMe Co. Another sister Janet, is an anthropologist and epidemiologist at the Department of Pediatrics, the University of California at San Francisco. What an incredibly talented family!

24. Anne Wojcicki, an American entrepreneur and the co-founder and chief executive officer of the personal genomics company 23andMe. She worked as a health care consultant at Passport Capital, a San Francisco-based investment fund, and at Investor AB. She was a healthcare investment analyst for 4 years, overseeing healthcare investments, focusing on biotechnology companies. In 2006, she co-founded 23andMe with Linda Avey. 23andMe is a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company, based in Mountain View, California, that provides genetic testing. The company is named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell. The company's personal genome test kit was named "Invention of the Year" by Time magazine in 2008.

"Anne  Wojcicki and 23andme" 

"Mutation and Human Disease. Can 23andMe have it all?" - by Kelly Servick in Science Magazine 

25. Richard W. Ziolkowski, John M. Leonis Distinguished Professor, College of Engineering, University of Arizona. He is a professor of electrical and computer engineering, a professor of optical sciences, and a past President of IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Ziolkowski;

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