After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie

Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.
Lise Meitner

Projects

Studying the proton spin structure with STAR

How the spin of a nucleon arises from the spins and orbital angular momenta of quarks and gluons? This fundamental question in hadron physics remains not completely answered. Experiments with polarized proton-proton collisions can bring us closer to the comprehensive understanding of the internal spin structure of matter.

Polarimetry for storage ring EDM experiments

The origin of the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe is one of the grand puzzles of modern physics. Searches for Electric Dipole Moments of charged hadrons within the JEDI collaboration can shed the light on the new sources on the CP-symmetry violation which could explain the observed preponderance of matter in our world.

Diffractive interaction of protons at CDF

Central exclusive production processes are characterized by large regions in forward rapidity devoid of hadrons, and a centrally produced state, in our case pairs of charged mesons. This class of reactions measured at TeV energies has an important role in meson spectroscopy, favoring states having valence gluons, such as glueballs.

Probing proton mass with WASA

The fact that up and down quarks have slightly different masses has quite some impact on our existence, resulting in proton being heavier then neutron, and therefore stable. Net effects of quark-mass differences can be studied in hadronic reactions, e.g., in the reaction measured with the WASA-at-COSY experiment.

Experience

March 2021 – Present
Lemont, IL, USA

Argonne National Laboratory

Collaboration: STAR, CLAS12, and ATHENA

• Investigating the proton spin structre with the STAR and CLAS12 experiments.
• Developing calorimetry for the future measurements at the Electron Ion Collider.
July 2018 – March 2021
Berkeley, CA, USA

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Collaboration: STAR

• Led analysis towards understanding the gluon contribution to proton spin with longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions at excess energy 200 GeV.
January 2017 – July 2018
Jülich, Germany

Research Center Jülich

Collaboration: JEDI

• Investigated polarized deuteron-carbon scattering with the WASA detector.
• Obtained database of spin observables for a dedicated polarimeter for the search for electric dipole moments of charged particles at a storage ring (srEDM).
October 2013 – November 2016
Jülich, Germany

Research Center Jülich

Collaboration: WASA-at-COSY

• Prepared and coordinated dedicated beamtime for the charge symmetry breaking reaction $dd\rightarrow{^4\text{He}}\pi^0$ measurement.
• Measured for the first time the differential cross-section and quantitatively interpreted obtained results by means of partial wave analysis.
October 2011 – July 2013
Cracow, Poland

Jagiellonian University

Collaboration: WASA-at-COSY

• Designed modification of the WASA detector setup for optimal measurement of the the $dd\rightarrow{^4\text{He}}\pi^0$.
• Granted ten-week-long dedicated beamtime by the COSY Program Advisory Committee.
October 2010 – July 2013
Cracow, Poland

Jagiellonian University

Level: Middle schools and high schools

• Completed coursework in pedagogy, psychology, and didactics of physics.
• Taught high-school and middle-school physics classes including curriculum preparation for pupils with special needs.
July 2010 – May 2015
Batavia, USA

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Collaboration: CDF

• Analyzed dedicated low-luminosity dataset at the CDF experiment.
• Observed central exclusive $\pi^+\pi^-$ production for the first time at excess energy of 1.96 and 0.9 TeV.

Selected Publications

(2020). Measurement of deuteron carbon vector analyzing powers in the kinetic energy range 170-380 MeV. In: The European Physical Journal A volume 56, 211.

(2018). Importance of d-wave contributions in the charge symmetry breaking reaction $dd \to {}^4\text{He}\pi^0$. In: Phys. Lett. B 781.

(2015). Measurement of central exclusive $\pi^+ \pi^-$ production in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 0.9$ and 1.96 TeV at CDF. In: Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communications) 91.

(2014). Charge symmetry breaking in dd$\rightarrow$$^4He\pi$$^0$ with WASA-at-COSY. In: Phys. Lett. B 739.

Outreach

To push further the frontier of our knowledge, we, as a community of scientists, cannot forget how essential popularization of science is. We can build state-of-the-art experimental facilities and create revolutionary theories and ideas, but as long as we do not have a diverse generation of enthusiastic young people with a critical-thinking attitude to continue our work, we cannot expect to achieve any long-lasting progress.

STEM outreach and education is an essential part of my mission as a scientist. See below some examples of my activity.

Teaching and Content Development

Promoting STEM and sharing the joy of science with students and general audience is one of my passions.

Early-career scientist associations

Throughout my career, I’ve been heavily involved in initiatives supporting early-career scientists.

Media

Polonium Webinar

Recording from an invited webinar titled A peek inside the proton: studying the fundamental structure of matter with the STAR experiment organized by the Polonium Fundation on 02/24/2021.

Berkeley Lab Science SLAM

My 3-min long presentation about messy protons during the finals of the Berkeley Lab Science SLAM 2019.

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

During the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2019 I had a chance to discuss the topic of aiming for a career in science with 3 Nobel Laureates in Physics Donna Strickland, Bill D. Phillips, and Wolfgang Ketterle, fellow LiNo participant Niamh Kavanagh, and STEM career consultant Alaina G. Levine.