Contact Information:

Nationality:

Education:

• D.Sc. (2008) Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  Thesis title: Irreversible Adsorption of Colloidal Particles at Heterogeneous Interfaces
  
  
• Ph.D. (2000) Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  Thesis title: Kinetics and Topology of Irreversible Adsorption of Anisotropic Particles at Homogeneous Interfaces
  
  
• M.Sc. (1989) Department of Mathematics and Physics, A. Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
  Thesis title: Effect of Hydrostatic Pressure on Electric Conductivity of LiK₄H₃ (SO₄)₄ Crystal
  
  

Employment:

• 2008-pres. Associate Professor, Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  
  
• 2000 - 2008 Assistant Professor, Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  
  
• 1994 - 2000 Senior Assistant, Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  
  
• 1992 - 1994 Assistant, Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
  
  

Professional Training:

• September 2007 Chemical and Materials Engineering Department at University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
  
  
• 2005 - 2007 Postdoctoral Research Associate at Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
  
  
• 2001 - 2003 Postdoctoral Research Associate at Chemical Engineering Department at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  
  
• September 1997 Biomedical Engineering Department at University of Groningen, Netherlands, and Charles Sadron Institute, Strasbourg, France
  
  
• June 1994 Analytical Chemistry Department at University of Barcelona, Spain (Tempus Project)
  
  
• March 1994 Chemistry Department at University of Dortmund and Institute of Spectrochemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Dortmund, Germany (Tempus Project)
  
  

Accomplishments:

• In collaboration with scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (Steen Rasmussen, Yi Jiang) conducted large scale (SGI-Altix) molecular dynamics simulations of peptide nucleic acid molecules in lipid-water systems to address important problem of nucleic acid affinity to lipid membrane, essential in gene therapy and in design of minimal self-reproducing nanomachine (protocell)
  
  
• Based on large scale molecular dynamics simulations calculated energy of hydrogen bonds formed between peptide nucleic acid molecule and lipid bilayer
  
  
• Studied stacking properties of guanine-guanine dimers in variety of systems using molecular dynamics on SGI-Altix, which helped to estimate their redox potential and potential application as simplest gene in protocell design
  
  
• Applied free energy perturbation method to calculate adsorption energy of flexible PNA molecules at deformable interface
  
  
• Collaborated with scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (Steen Rasmussen, Yi Jiang) to conduct series of high performance (SGI-Altix, Linux clusters) molecular dynamics simulations of micellar dynamics and stability that allowed to solve problem of potential application of fatty acid micelle in protocell design
  
  
• Developed combined Monte Carlo - Brownian dynamics model of nanoparticle irreversible adsorption at homogeneous and heterogeneous surfaces, including particle-particle and particle-interface electrostatic interaction, allowing fast and exact computation of deposition kinetics and formed monolayer or multilayer structure
  
  
• Developed extended Random Sequential Adsorption (RSA) model allowing description of multilayer adsorption of electrostatically neutral nanoparticle, which is expected to have great impact on understanding multilayer adsorption of polyelectrolytes and proteins at high ionic strength
  
  
• Developed numerical method for calculating adsorption flux through high energy barrier
  
  
• Derived single semi-empirical formula for van der Waals dispersion interaction between spherical particle and flat plate, working at both small and large separation distance
  
  
• Collaborated with scientists from Yale University (Menachem Elimelech, John Y. Walz) and developed continuum numerical models of reversible colloid and bacteria adsorption at secondary minimum of potential energy to solve important issues of virus transport in subsurface porous media and removal of microbial pathogens during riverbank filtration
  
  
• Collaborated with scientists from Yale University (Menachem Elimelech, John Y. Walz) to investigate effect of depletion interaction on colloid particle transport in porous media
  
  
• Developed new spectrophotometric flow-through cell for colloidal applications (monitoring of scattered light)
  
  
• Studied irreversible adsorption of nanoparticles at heterogeneous interfaces to address maximum efficiency of selective protein adsorption important issue
  
  
• Developed effective hard particle approach for spheroidal particles to achieve high efficiency of soft particle computer simulation
  
  
• Developed equivalent sphere approach for electrostatic interaction of non-spherical colloid particles
  
  
• Developed extended RSA model for polydisperse particles, which had great impact on understanding polydispersity effect on colloid adsorption
  
  
• Calculated adsorption jamming limits for prolate and oblate spheroidal particles, which gave insights into possible protein maximum coverage
  
  
• Developed extended RSA model for nonspherical interacting particles to better describe protein adsorption
  
  

Awards and Honors:

• Award for Outstanding Oral Presentation in Biosciences, Symposium 2005 Championing Scientific Careers, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
  
  
• Award of Polish Academy of Sciences for Distinguished Ph.D. Theses, Krakow 2000, Poland
  
  

Research Interests:

Research Grants:

• 2009 - 2012 Polish Ministry of Education and Science, research grant #N N204 347737 for the project Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Porosity of Controlled Architecture Colloidal Multilayers - Principal Investigator
  
  
• 2006 - 2009 Polish Ministry of Education and Science, research grant #3 T09A 123 30 for the project Mechanisms of Formation of Multilayers of Controlled Architecture on Metallic Surfaces - Co-Principal Investigator
  
  
• 2004 - 2006 Polish Ministry of Scientific Research and Information Technology, research grant #3 T09A 089 27 for the project Localized Adsorption of Colloid Particles in the Formation of Multilayer Thin Films Obtained Using the Layer by Layer Method - Principal Investigator
  
  
• 2000 - 2001 State Committee for Scientific Research, research grant #3 T09A 105 18 for the project Interaction of Colloid Particles with Paramagnetic Surfaces under Forced Convection Conditions - Investigator
  
  
• 1996 - 1997 State Committee for Scientific Research, research grant #3 T09A 083 10 for the project Kinetics and Mechanism of Brownian Particle Adsorption at Surfaces of Controlled Heterogeneity - Investigator
  
  
• 1993 - 1995 State Committee for Scientific Research, research grant #2 P303 039 05 for the project Mechanisms of Colloid Particle Adsorption under the Effect of Hydrodynamic and External Fields - Investigator
  
  

Referee:

• Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
  
  
• Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling
  
  
• Colloids and Surfaces A
  
  
• Environmental Science & Technology