Our ambassadors represent ŚFN Katowice throughout the year in Poland and abroad. These wonderful science communicators and advocates bring the Festival’s mission to an ever-wider audience and encourage participation in subsequent editions of the event. Accompanying participants in acquiring new skills and competences, the ambassadors share their knowledge and experience. During the upcoming 9th edition of ŚFN, some of them will conduct experiments together with the Festival’s audience and discover new areas of science.
The Polish team of ŚFN ambassadors includes:
● Tomasz Rożek, PhD – science journalist and physicist. He hosts his own Radio eM programme “Labirynty wiedzy” (Labyrinths of Knowledge) and also appears on Radio 357’s morning show, answering listeners’ “Pytania z księżyca “ (Questions from the Moon). In addition, as the founder and president of the Nauka. To Lubię Foundation, he conducts science communication activities concerning various fields of science.
● Agata Kołodziejczyk, PhD – neurobiologist and astrobiologist. As the first Polish woman at the European Space Agency, she developed, among other things, a revolutionary solution for multi-module orbital telescopes. She conducts research and science communication activities as part of the forScience Foundation, the World Research Centre and the private space agency Valles Marineris.
● Jarosław Juszkiewicz – radio journalist, owner of the Polish Voices voice-over studio. Since 2021, he has been part of the Radio 357 team, where he prepares podcasts and the weekly programme ‘Rzecz Technologiczna’ (Technology Matters). He works closely with the Planetarium – Silesian Science Park, where he organises popular science shows.
● Ewelina Zambrzycka-Kościelnicka – popular science journalist, associated with, among others, National Geographic Polska and the reporting magazine Weekend.Gazeta.pl. She is the co-author of the books Człowiek. Istota kosmiczna (Man. A Cosmic Being), Kosmiczne wyzwania (Cosmic Challenges) and Odważ się robić wielkie rzeczy (Dare to Do Great Things), as well as the spokesperson for the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
● Łukasz Lamża, PhD – nature philosopher and science journalist. He is an employee of the Copernicus Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Jagiellonian University and a member of the editorial staff of Tygodnik Powszechny. On YouTube, he hosts a weekly scientific press review ‘Czytamy naturę’ (Reading Nature), which won the POP Science 2024 Award in the video blog category.
● Prof. Katarzyna Kłosińska – linguist, chair of the Polish Language Council at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Affiliated with the Institute of Polish Language at the University of Warsaw, she specialises in lexicology and semantics, as well as ethnolinguistics. She analyses the contemporary Polish language and uncovers its secrets on Radio 357.
● Wiktor Niedzicki – radio and television journalist, university lecturer, author of the programme ‘Laboratorium’ (Laboratory), in which he shares knowledge about physics and the most important achievements in technology. His original shows – including ‘Dziedzictwo Einsteina‘ (Einstein's Legacy), ‘Historia brudu’ ( History of Dirt) and ‘Kosmos w naszym domu’ (Cosmos in Our Home) – have been attracting viewers in Poland and abroad for years.
● Jan Pomierny – creative director, film director, producer and entrepreneur who has been developing projects at the intersection of science, education and culture for over 20 years. He is the founder of the Science Now strategic design studio and the New Space Foundation. He is also one of the organisers of the SPLOT Institute, where he co-creates SPLOT Artemis Generation, associated with the programme to get humans back to the Moon.
● Łukasz Wilczyński – science communicator, president of the Space Communications Alliance, founder of Planet Partners and the European Space Foundation. In 2017, he received the Tiuterra Crystal Award (a crystal containing fragments of Earth and Mars) from the Austrian Space Forum for his contributions to the promotion and development of space topics around the world.
● Mikołaj Sokół – journalist, television commentator, Formula One expert. Since 2006, he has regularly participated in Grand Prix races and other motorsport events, which he reports, among others, on Eleven Sports and on his own website, Sokolim Okiem (Eagle Eye).
● Arkadiusz Gorzawski, PhD – particle accelerator physicist and software engineer at the European Spallation Source (ESS), and previously at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). He works at ESS in Lund, Sweden, and is a visiting scientist at CERN. He enjoys sharing his passion for physics at meetings with university and secondary school students.
● Piotr Baron – presenter on Polish Radio Three, with which he has been working since 1984. He has received numerous awards for his achievements in journalism and has hosted programmes such as ‘Zapraszamy do Trójki’ (Welcome to Polish Radio Three) and, alternately with Marek Niedźwiecki, ‘Lista przebojów Programu Trzeciego’ (Radio Three Chart) (2007–2010). He currently prepares and hosts the programmes ‘3 wymiary gitary’ (Three Dimensions of the Guitar), ‘Nie tylko gitary’ (Not Only Guitars) and ‘W tonacji Trójki’ (In the Key of Polish Radio Three).
Ambassadors from foreign scientific and research centres are also part of the Festival. This group includes:
● Nicole Stott – engineer, member of the NASA astronaut corps. She made her first extraterrestrial journey aboard the Discovery space shuttle, which set off for the International Space Station (August–November 2009); she went into space for the second time at the turn of February and March 2011. She has received many awards and distinctions for her achievements in the field of astronautics, including the Space Flight Medal and the Medal for Merit in Space Exploration (2011).
● Daniel Tammet – British autistic savant, exceptionally gifted in languages and arithmetic. He is fluent in 11 languages and also creates his own language, Mänti (modelled on Estonian and Finnish). Thanks to his synesthetic abilities, which allow him to memorise complex sequences of numbers, he became the European record holder for reciting 22,514 digits of number Pi from memory.
● David Price – British outdoor scientist, writer, FameLab masterclass trainer. He travels the world as an outdoor scientist, performing extraordinary scientific experiments to share his knowledge in a simple and inspiring way. He received the Josh Award at the Manchester Science Festival for his innovative ideas and contribution to the creative dissemination of science.
Full biographies of our ambassadors along with information about their science communication activities can be found on our website in the ‘Ambassadors’ tab.
The 9th edition of the Silesian Science Festival Katowice will take place on 6–8 December at the International Congress Centre.
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