Our PhD Students

I am a doctoral candidate at the Doctoral School of the University of the of National Education Commission, specialising in History. I obtained my BA degree in 2023 and my MA degree in 2025 at the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University. I earned my Master’s degree on the basis of a thesis entitled A Socialist’s Path to Independence: The Socio-Political Activity of Zygmunt Klemensiewicz (until 1919).

My research interests focus on the history of Poland in the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the interwar period and the history of the Polish Left. I am also keen to extend my research to later decades (after 1945) as well as earlier periods (the era of the partitions), while engaging with social, economic, and cultural history.

I am currently preparing a biographical study devoted to a prominent figure of the pre-war Polish Left, Emil Bobrowski (1876–1938).

My scholarly work has been honoured with several awards, including, Second Prize in the 18th Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski Competition, an Honourable Mention in the Władysław Semkowicz Competition, and Second Prize in the Polish Political Thought of the 20th and 21st Centuries Competition organised by the Gabriel Narutowicz Institute of Political Thought

I am a PhD student in Biological Sciences. I graduated from the first and second degree of Biology at the University of the Commission of National Education in Krakow. My research interests include research in the field of biochemistry and biophysics, in particular cytotoxicology and membrane biology.

In the research project, I intend to expand my knowledge on the effect of isothiazoline derivatives on the biochemical and biophysical parameters of human cell lines and model cell membranes.

Artur Orzeł – PhD student at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow in the discipline of legal sciences and trainee attorney-at-law at the OIRP in Krakow. Final year student of master’s studies in international relations. Specializing in civil law and banking law. He actively develops his professional career not only in a scientific but also practical context, working for one of the leading Polish law firms.

Milana Ospanova is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in pedagogy at Pedagogical University of Krakow. She completed her Master in the field of social pedagogy and self-knowledge at Karaganda Buketov University in Kazakhstan. Milana is also a scholarship holder of NAWA within the exchange program for students and scientists as part of bilateral cooperation between Poland and Kazakhstan.

Her most recent researches focus on the prevention of destructive behavior of students and problems of contemporary pedeutology and has already published articles in scientific journals.

She is now working on teacher competences for working with students displaying disruptive behavior based on the experiences in Poland and Kazakhstan.

Doctoral student in Psychology at the Doctoral School of the University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. She completed her Master’s degree in Physiotherapy in Neurology specialization at Semmelweis University in Budapest.

After graduation, she undertook a research internship at the Jagiellonian University Medical School in the field of the menstrual cycle, contributing to interdisciplinary research on hormonal, physiological, and psychological interactions in women.

Her research focuses on women’s health psychology and cognitive science, particularly the interplay between mood, sleep, and cognition across different stages of the menopausal transition. She aims to advance understanding of female mental health and neurocognitive functioning throughout the lifespan.

Born in 1996 in Tychy (Poland). Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (diploma in 2020 in the atelier of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk). In 2018-2019 she studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nuremberg.

Currently she is a first year PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Pedagogical University of Cracow in the discipline of Fine Arts and Conservation of Works of Art. The topic of her doctoral dissertation, carried out under the supervision of dr hab. Michał Zawada, prof. ASP, is An unrealized fantasy. The political potential of imaging individual and collective fantasy.

The topics she explores are: the gap between collective memory and history, politics of memory and its impact on the present and future, national identity (the emergence of the concept of nation), attempts to predict the future and labour and its relationship with the individual. She works in the technique of painting, sculpture and large-format diorama.

Portfolio: https://alicjapakosz.pl/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicja.pakosz/

Visual artist and graphic designer, graduated from ASP Katowice with degree in graphic art. Predominantly creates artbooks, collage, drawings –  although when the need arose, she also created a computer game, a box with an electrical socket and art in The Sims.

Her research topić is Antarctica as a contemporary utopia.

She holds a Master’s degree in Religious Studies (UJ), and is currently completing her second Master’s degree in History and National Heritage (UPJP2). She holds teaching qualifications for working with deaf people (UJD). Her research interests focus on cultural security, civil-military cooperation, security education, and religious aspects of conflict.

She conducts training in the area of ​​psychological resilience and skills for overcoming learned helplessness. She combines reflection on religiosity with the perspective of cultural security and security education, collaborating with various social groups.

She is the author of books and articles on the psychology of religion and regional history.

At the Doctoral School, she is conducting a research project in the field of security studies, focusing on deaf people in the context of threats to Poland’s national security. Her supervisors are dr. hab. Małgorzata Bereźnicka, professor at the UKEN, and dr. hab. Przemysław Wywiał, professor at the UKEN.

I am a graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. I am involved in drawing, comic art and self-publishing related to independent comics. At the moment I am working on my own feature comic and taking part in festivals in Poland and abroad, related to comics, games and pop culture in general. I am a member of Polish Indie, an association of independent comics creators. I have also had the pleasure of leading bookbinding and comics art workshops in the drawing studios of the Academy of Fine Arts. I have also been active in the student government of the Graphic Design Department. In 2022, I defended my MA degree in the Narrative Drawing Studio under the direction of Dr Jakub Woynarowski. The title of the project was A Guide to RPGs, which is a comic essay on role-playing games and was nominated for the 2023 Golden Chickens independent publications competition in the category of best debut 2022.
My project, based in the Doctoral School, is about role-playing games, particularly their intermediality and interdisciplinarity in terms of their design. I will explore the development of the currently popular art-punk RPG trend and the influence of comic art on game design, as well as the relationship of the artist as consumer and creator of role-playing games.
Supervisor: Prof. UKEN Dr. Małgorzata Niespodziewana-Rados
Associate supervisor; Dr. Bartosz Zaskórski
my portfolio: www.instagram.com/cultistcarl

An intermedia creator working at the intersection of painting and sculpture. In her artistic practice, she uses found objects and urban waste, regarding them as collectors of human intimacy. She employs the interiors of old furniture or bedsheets as alternatives to the traditional canvas, as it is important to her that the chosen surfacet already carries emotional weight even before her intervention.

She believes that every artwork is created anew and fully through the act of its reception, it is at that moment that narratives and layers of meaning previously unnoticed are revealed. For this reason, from her perspective, the viewer is the most important element in the creative process.

Aleksandra Polok is a PhD student in literary studies. She is a graduate of Polish language and Literature Studies with a polish teaching major in the University of the National Education Commission. In her master’s thesis, she explored the research stream of the cultural contexts of reading in Poland during the anti-positivist breakthrough, analyzing literary education guides of that time.The doctoral student’s research interests include contemporary poetry and Polish literature for children and teenagers. In her project, she focuses on the concept of modern melancholy in contemporary poetry.

A second-year Ph.D. student in the discipline of linguistics, she is a graduate of physiotherapy at the Bronislaw Czech University of Physical Education in Krakow, postgraduate studies in Logopedia and Pedagogical Studies at PK. She holds an International Certificate as a therapist of NDT-Bobath and PNF concepts and early developmental support for children at risk. She provides screening of infants, children and adolescents, developmental therapy from birth to maturity
and beyond. She has worked with the Department of Developmental Disorders at the Pedagogical University of Cracow. She gave interdisciplinary lectures combining the experience of a physiotherapist and speech therapist for min. FASTRYGA Center, WIR Publishing House, “Let’s get up together” Foundation, Health Guide Portal “Physiotherapy for Health”, as well as consultations as part of the “We race with diabetes” campaign during the 2016 Tour de Pologne . He cooperates
with the Medical Center “Ortotop”, the Rehabilitation Center for children and infants NZOZ Kraków-Południe. She co-authored recommendations for physiotherapeutic evaluation of children with suspected Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder FASD in the team formed at the State Agency for the Solution of Alcohol Problems (PARPA). She was a member of the consultation “Diagnosis of key educational needs of students with autism spectrum and Asperger’s syndrome, FAS syndrome. Assessment of their educational potential in the Silesian Province in terms of their specific abilities and limitations” carried out on behalf of the Office of the Marshal of the Silesian Province. Member of the Thematic Team for Quality and Monitoring of the Physiotherapy Process at the National Chamber of Physiotherapy (KIF) and the Polish Physiotherapy Association.
He researches problems of disorders of the oral-facial tract. He is looking for answers to from the borderline of both disciplines to more effectively support the therapy process in the youngest possible patients.

I am a PhD student at the Doctoral School of the University of the National Education Commission in Kraków in the discipline of political science and public administration. I completed my master’s degree at UKEN in the field of management in social services. In my research, I focus on issues related to palliative and hospice care, which I analyse in the context of social policy as well as institutional and social conditions.

My professional experience gained through work in a hospice constitutes an important context for my analyses and allows me to combine a theoretical perspective with practical insight into the functioning of the healthcare system.

Born in 1994, a multidisciplinary artist and a graduate of the Sculpture Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her work focuses on hauntological themes. The artist engages in critical and cultural studies of Gothic and horror, which have become a new methodology for examining and naming global transformations. Both genres create a space for questioning conventional natural histories.

So far, she has presented her works in venues such as Galeria Studio, Galerie Fotografic (Prague, CZ), MetaForte (Venice, IT), IndustraArt (Brno, CZ), as well as during Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Cracow Art Week, and the Survival Art Review.

I am a PhD student in the field of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. My research focuses on measuring the role of foreign development aid in the various transformation processes in Eastern Europe. My scientific interests include transition studies, methodology in political science, inferential statistics, and decolonization discourses. I am also a member of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association).

I received a Master’s degree in East European and Eurasian Studies from the University of Kansas, USA. Additionally, I hold an MA in East European Studies from the University of Warsaw, Poland, and an MA in Political Science from the University of Ostroh Academy, Ukraine.

Edyta Pytel – PhD student in social sciences in the discipline of security science. A graduate of bachelor’s and master’s studies in administration at the Jagiellonian University, as well as a master’s degree in social work with a specialty as an organiser of social services at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. She has over 6 years of professional experience in the field of social assistance. Her research interests revolve around societal security issues with a particular emphasis on social, elementary security issues. As part of her doctoral dissertation, she undertakes scientific research on the issue of social security of families at-risk in the context of societal conditionings of the 21st century.

PhD candidate in the humanities (philosophy) at the University of National Education Commission in Kraków. Graduate in sociology and philosophy from the University of Gdańsk. He also studied at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He defended his master’s thesis on anthropological and aesthetic concepts in the philosophy of Emil Cioran.

His research focuses on philosophical anthropology, aesthetics, and contemporary continental philosophy. He is preparing a doctoral dissertation on the concept of anesthetics and subjectivity in the context of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO).

Since 2022, he has been collaborating with the Kraków Circle of Psychoanalysis of the New Lacanian School. He completed a research fellowship at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, conducting research at the Department of Image Theory and Phenomenology (Bildtheorie und Phänomenologie).

Profiles:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0724-9273
PhilPeople: https://philpeople.org/profiles/kamil-rajkowski-1
Academia: https://uken.academia.edu/KamilRajkowski
MOST Wiedzy: https://mostwiedzy.pl/pl/kamil-rajkowski

Email: kamil.rajkowski@doktorant.uken.krakow.pl

I completed my engineering and master’s degrees in Biotechnology at the Hugo Kołłątaj University of Agriculture in Kraków. I am particularly interested in microbiology, molecular biology, and laboratory work, which constitute both my passion and the foundation of my scientific development.

Currently, I am studying at the Doctoral School of the University of the Commission of National Education, within the discipline of Biological Sciences. My research focuses on elucidating the environmental functions of epizoic fungi occurring on the exoskeletons of coprophagous beetles.

A PhD student in the field of social sciences, specializing in economics and finance at the UKEN in Kraków. I hold a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Szczecin, where I specialized in managing European Union aid funds. Additionally, I am a certified career advisor, a title I earned at the University of Economy in Bydgoszcz. I have experience as a coordinator of EU projects in the fields of education and social assistance, managing initiatives aimed at improving access to education, promoting equal opportunities, and supporting individuals at risk of social exclusion and fostering active integration.

My research interests include international economics, fiscal policy, and behavioral economics. I focus on analyzing the impact of macroeconomic policy on various aspects of socio-economic development. I am particularly interested in mechanisms for reducing social exclusion and their practical application in regional policy. I actively participate in academic conferences and engage in research projects with practical applications in the economy.

I am currently working on my doctoral dissertation titled “The Role of the European Social Fund in Combating Social Exclusion in the Northwestern Macroregion of Poland in the Years 2014–2023.” In this research, I examine the role of ESF financial support and social programs in promoting equal opportunities and fostering the active social integration of individuals at risk of social exclusion or marginalization.