Our PhD Students

A PhD student in the field of social sciences, within the discipline of sociology. She completed her studies in journalism and social communication as well as sociology at the University of Silesia in Katowice. Her doctoral research focuses on gender inequalities in the healthcare system, analysing the social and institutional mechanisms behind the marginalisation of women’s health.

She is also affiliated with the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, where she is involved in teaching, research, and organisational activities, including co-organising the conference “Together Against Violence”.

Alongside her academic work, she is active as a cultural animator, engaging in the organisation of music festivals and concerts in the Silesia region, and collaborating with cultural institutions.

Her research interests include gender studies, the sociology of social movements, social communication, and the sociology of medicine.

of the Commission of National Education in Krakow (UKEN), in the discipline of Political Science and Public Administration. She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work, from the University of Gdańsk and the Academy of Tarnów, respectively. Her research interests focus on issues of gender, sexuality and artificial  intelligence, particularly in the context of developing inclusive public policies. In her doctoral dissertation, she analyzes paradigms of public policy regarding sexuality in the era of artificial intelligence, with particular attention to privacy protection and mechanisms of technocratic social surveillance.

I am a PhD student in the discipline of mathematics. My dissertation in the field of curve theory is being written under the supervision of dr hab. prof. UKEN Piotr Pokora and dr Marek Janasz. I am a graduate of the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. My research interests focus on combinatorial algebraic geometry, including singularity theory and combinatorial commutative algebra. I am currently working as a research assistant at the National Education Commission in Krakow. My hobbies include playing the saxophone, traveling and hiking in the mountains.

Master Paulina Likus – PhD student in biological sciences. A graduate of first and second degree biology at the Pedagogical University of Commission of National Education in Krakow.

My main interest is microbiology, especially the impact of antibiotics, chemotherapeutics and natural substances on the development of microorganisms. Further scientific interests include ecotoxicology, human biomonitoring and public health. Currently, I exercise my laboratory competences as an employee of the Laboratory Diagnostics Department of the District Hospital in Chrzanów.

In the research project, I want to investigate the impact of newly synthesized compounds resulting from the condensation of a series of rhodanine-3-carboxyalkyl acids with substituted 2-chloroquinoline-3-carboxaldehydes on multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family producing extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) and Gram – positive bacteria from the Staphylococcaceae family.

The research will include the following stages: isolation of bacilli from clinical material with extended antibiotic resistance, determination of the growth kinetics of these bacteria in the presence of newly synthesized compounds, analysis of changes in the gene transcriptome.

My name is Bartosz Łabuś and I am a doctoral student at the Doctoral School of the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow in the field of legal sciences. At the same time, I am completing my legal training at the Krakow Bar Association (third year). I graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow with a degree in law, defending my master’s thesis at the Department of Criminal Law on the verification of the need to amend Article 197 of the Criminal Code in its then wording, taking into account the Anglo-Saxon perspective.
My research interests include such issues as substantive criminal law and its constitutional foundations; principles of interpretation in criminal law; mechanisms for rationalising criminal responsibility; offences against freedom, including sexual freedom; the issue of consent in criminal law, including the matter of determining the scope of criminal law protection by the victim; common law criminal law.
My research at the Doctoral School focuses on the issue of expungement of convictions, as well as restrictions on rights and freedoms not included in the conviction that are applied to citizens in connection with their conviction for a crime. The research aims to reconstruct a complete catalogue of these restrictions, rationalise them and determine whether there is any teleological connection between them and the institution of expungement of convictions.

E-mail address: d751454@doktorant.uken.krakow.pl

I am a graduate of historical tourism and cultural heritage (2022) at the Pedagogical University of Krakow. My BA thesis was about the Serbian village of Ostojićevo and the region of Vojvodina as an international tourist product, and my MA thesis was about the former residences of Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska and how they could be used in tourism. My research interests are mainly related to the history of the mentality of women in the modern period, in particular noblewomen of the Saxon period. The doctoral dissertation focuses on the informants, newsboys and postmen of the castellan of Krakow, Elżbieta Sieniawska. Performing thorough queries and analyzes in Polish and foreign archives, I am working on a dissertation that will raise an important topic of social communication at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries

Jestem doktorantką językoznawstwa. Ukończyłam studia licencjackie i magisterskie na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym im. KEN w Krakowie. Tytuł licencjata logopedii z nauczaniem języka polskiego jako obcego uzyskałam w 2019 roku, a dwa lata później obroniłam tytuł magistra filologii polskiej ze specjalnością edytorstwo i zarządzanie treściami internetowymi.  Obecnie pracuję jako lektorka języka polskiego jako obcego (m.in. w Centrum Nauczania Języka Polskiego Jako Obcego przy Instytucie Filologii Polskiej UP). Miałam swój udział w redagowaniu i korektach m.in. znanej serii „HURRA!!! Po Polsku” czy książkach „Połącz kropki” i „Postaw kropkę”. Biorę udział w różnych projektach promujących język polski jako obcy. Realizuję się również jako prowadząca lub współprowadząca szkolenia związane z nauczaniem polskiego jako obcego na portalu Polski i Kropka (https://polskiikropka.pl/).

Moje zainteresowania badawcze koncentrują się wokół takich zagadnień jak: nauczanie języka polskiego jako obcego/drugiego, nauczanie języka polskiego jako języka edukacji szkolnej, akwizycja języka, dwujęzyczność. Znajdują one wyraz w problematyce mojego doktoratu dotyczącego wsparcia językowego uczniów i uczennic z doświadczeniem migracji w zakresie umiejętności pisania w języku polskim jako drugim.

PhD student at the Doctoral School of the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow in the discipline of security sciences. A graduate of law studies and international security studies at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. The PhD student’s research interests revolve around issues of cross-border security and contemporary terrorism. As part of his doctoral dissertation, she undertakes research on the issues of cross-border crime and terrorism in Poland after 2007.

PhD student in the discipline of security sciences. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in State Security from the Pedagogical University of the National Education Commission in Kraków (2023) and two Master’s degrees in National Security (2025) and Public Administration (2025) from the University of the National Education Commission in Kraków. Since 2016, she has actively served as a member of the Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Her scholarly interests focus on issues related to security sciences, with particular emphasis on railway traffic safety, fire protection, and the operational framework of the National Firefighting and Rescue System. Her doctoral research examines threats to railway traffic safety through a comparative analysis of the Republic of Poland and the Swiss Confederation.

I am a historian and archivist, a graduate of the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University (2019). Since 2019, I have been working at the Archive of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU) in Cracow, and since 2021 I have been serving as the deputy director of this unit. I am also a member of the Society of Friends of Science in Przemyśl. My research interests revolve around the history of science, military history (especially issues related to cavalry motorization), and biographical studies. In my dissertation, I deal with issues related to the community of Krakow orientalists after the end of World War II, their problems and challenges in the face of the new post-war order

I’m a doctoral student at the National Education Commission University, where I’m working on an NCN Sonata grant, The Role of Postcolonial Concepts in Defining the Polish State and its Relations with Africa during the Twentieth Century.  My interests are mainly in the history of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the issue of countries and societies whose development has been affected by external interference and politic or cultural domination. That is why I dedicated my Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis to Irish history. Both its efforts in the struggle for independence and the social effects of the island’s division that are still present today. My current research focuses mainly on the attitude of the Polish state and society towards the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. I would like this research to serve not only to better understand the history of colonial discourse in Polish conditions, but also to become part of a postcolonial turn in contemporary Polish historiography

Director, screenwriter, film producer and author of short literary forms.

He focuses attention on myths and fantasy which have shaped and influenced the destiny of given communities and individuals.

Since 2008 Michał Mądracki works in collaboration with Gilles Lepore and Maciej Mądracki under the moniker of MMLCollective. In practice MML works with specific communities, at times for several years, in order to develop an immersive cinema narrative which intertwines fiction and reality. Their films are featured as installations in exhibition venues and screened in cinemas.

From 2024 he started artistic collaboration with his wife – Aleksandra Mądracka in the field of screenwriting and intermedia art.

In 2025 he began PhD studies at the Faculty of  Arts, his supervisor is dr hab. Wioletta Sowa. His theme is migration in the practice of visual experiment. He is particularly interested in the relations between the first Polish settlers and the indigenous people in Brazil.

SELECTED ACHIEVMENTS

2024

Screening of the film “Tracking

Satyrs” in the Premieres Revivals

program, Anthology Film Archives, NYC

2023

Recipient of the Krakow City Creative

Scholarship in the Visual Arts category

2018

“Sans bruit, les figurants du desert”

presented as part of the MoMA Doc

Forthnight in New York. The film was

co-financed by the Polish Film Institute

2017

Film Review at Anthology Film

Archives, NYC at the personal

invitation of Jonas Mekas

2010

Grand Prix FID Marseille in the

festival’s main competition for the film

FILM POLSKI

https://filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?osoba=11100734

IMDB

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4045289/

Katarzyna Majca-Lipa MA – PhD student in the field of humanities in the discipline of literary studies. A graduate of Polish philology with teaching specialty, also with teaching Polish as a second or foreign language (2023) at the Pedagogical University of National Education Commission in Krakow. In her master’s thesis, she analyzed „speech and silence of plants” in the poetry of Wisława Szymborska. The doctoral student scientific and research interests focus on contemporary poetry and prose, especially issues related to literature anthropology, also in the perspective of ecological humanities and posthumanities. The topics of dissertation will oscillate around anthropocenic and posthumanist issues in contemporary women’s poetry.

Education

2023 Obtained a master’s degree in special education

Institute of Special, School and Teacher Education

Field of study: Special education (daytime)

Specialty: Pedagogical therapy and individual revalidation

Title of master’s thesis: Changes in the emotional and social sphere of personality in children with dyslexia under the influence of the “Game of Good Behavior” project (supervisor: Dr. Katarzyna Plutecka, professor at UP)

2021 Obtained a bachelor’s degree in special education

Institute of Special Education

Major: History (daily)

Specialty: Oligophrenopedagogy

Title of bachelor’s thesis: “Game for Good Behavior” program in the prevention of difficult behavior in children with intellectual disabilities (supervisor: Dr. Małgorzata Trojańska)

Area of ​​interest: behavioral therapy, prevention, addictions, intellectual disability

I am a PhD candidate in psychology at the Doctoral School of the University of the  National Education Commission in Kraków. I completed a five-year integrated Master’s degree in psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology at the same university.

My scientific interests focus on the use of non-invasive brain neuromodulation techniques as tools for supporting human cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning, as well as their potential applications in therapeutic interventions.

In my research, I investigate brain neuromodulation using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) implemented in an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment, and I analyze its effects on eating impulsivity. I am also interested in the possibilities of integrating neuromodulation with immersive technologies in both scientific research and clinical practice.

Alongside my academic work, I am developing professionally in the field of psychological support and clinical work with patients in psychiatric care settings. I am also gradually expanding my competencies toward psychotherapeutic practice.

Student at the Doctoral School of the Pedagogical University of Cracow in the field of fine arts and art conservation. Graduate of Photography at Warsaw University and Contemporary Art at Pedagogical University in Cracow. Affiliated with Galeria Labirynt (Lublin), where she is involved in education and participatory projects. Photographer, photo editor, intermedia artist, curator. Most often she uses the medium of photography understood in a broad sense; video, analog and digital collage. She also works in the field of subjective documentary and “new new media.” In her works she addresses social and relational issues, she is interested in intergenerational themes, sociology of everyday life. She has participated in residencies, solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Finalist of Grand Press Photo 2020, nominated for reportage and portrait in the Young Poland category, co-curator of the grant project of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the “Kultura Dostępna” 2020 program: First Sense – non-visual perception of art. Together with Michał Tokarz, she forms the collective – Kolektyw [ZOBACZ JAK]. Her dissertation deals with the revision of common educational attitudes that have been present for years in the “intergenerational relay,” significant in the upbringing of Generation Y, of which she is a representative. The final work will be a multi-element, intermedia work visualizing these attitudes.

PhD student in social sciences in the field of socio-economic geography and spatial economy at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. Graduate of bachelor’s studies in tourism and recreation with a specialization in international tourism (thesis topic: “Tourist offer of castles in the Podkarpackie Province”) and supplementary master’s studies in tourism and recreation with a specialization in cultural tourism (thesis topic: “Tourist development of castles in the Małopolska Province”) at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. Her research interests include the tourism labor market, cultural tourism in Poland with a particular focus on castles and museums, city tourism and accessibility in tourism. Her doctoral dissertation will focus on the demand for employees in the tourism industry in Poland in spatial, structural, and application terms.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4673-7780

e-mail: d751449@doktorant.uken.krakow.pl

Agnieszka Mikulska is a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of the Pedagogical University of Krakow in the discipline of history. She is a graduate of German and Central European Studies at the KEN Pedagogical University in Kraków and the Charles University in Prague.

In 2021, she defended her MA thesis entitled Education in Bochnia in the second half of the 19th century. Her research interests focus on the German political scene, 20th century German history and the evolution of political ideologies in German-speaking countries.

Her doctoral dissertation will concern the parliamentary activity of The Green Party between 1994-2005 on the German political scene. The research conducted will aim to analyse a key period for the development of one of the most important parties in Germany in the 21st century at a particularly crucial time for its development.

My name is Minh Tu To, and I am from Vietnam. I have been working for seven years at the National Institute of Medicinal Materials, Ministry of Health, where my research focuses on medicinal plant resources in Vietnam. I obtained my master’s degree in biology from the University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. My main research interests include the diversity of medicinal plant resources, traditional knowledge related to medicinal plant use, and biodiversity conservation. At the Doctoral School, I will conduct research on the resilience of forest ecosystems to the invasion of alien species in Ojców National Park. I am truly excited to join this academic community and look forward to learning from and collaborating with all of you.

Zuzanna Mucha, MA – PhD student at the Doctoral School of the University of the National Education Commission in Cracow in the discipline of biological sciences. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology. The doctoral student’s scientific interests are related to animal physiology, particularly in the area of neurophysiology, as well as ecophysiology and toxicology. In the Doctoral School, she hopes to enhance her knowledge by conducting a research project on the expression and function of estrogen receptors in the gastrointestinal tract of the avian embryo and studying the development of the enteric nervous system in this research model.