Marcin Chwała, PhD, DSc, Eng of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Prof. Krystyna Dąbrowska of the Faculty of Medicine have been granted scholarships under the Fulbright Senior Award programme. The two winners will travel to the US in the academic year 2025/26 to conduct research at prestigious US universities.

Fulbright Senior Award is the United States' most extensive scientific and cultural exchange programme that enables individuals employed at Polish academic and scientific institutions to carry out independent research or projects involving research and teaching at a host institution in the USA.

Awarded by the Polish-American Fulbright Commission, the Fulbright Senior Award scholarship targets research staff and academics at any stage of their post-doctoral careers.

71 people took part in the last edition of the competition, and the commission decided to award 16 scholarships, including two for researchers from Wrocław University of Science and Technology.  Marcin Chwała, PhD, DSc, Eng will be posted to the University of Maryland, while Prof. Krystyna Dąbrowska will conduct her project at Stanford University Medical Center.

Exploration of lava tubes in space

In his day-to-day work, the W2 researcher deals with issues at the intersection of geotechnics and probabilistic methods. Among other things, he has developed an approach to optimise soil-sounding locations in such a way as best to reduce uncertainties in the determination of foundation-bearing capacity. More recently, he has also been involved in analysing the stability of lava caves under lunar conditions. He also spearheads the PROMISE project, funded by the National Science Centre, where he is a research team leader.

The scholarship will allow the researcher to do a placement at the University of Maryland, which will be an extension of his interest in lava tubes.

“When I’m there, I’ll be working with a large group of people interested in extraterrestrial lava cave exploration,” says Dr Chwała. “The group also includes my two mentors: Patrick Whelley (Department of Astronomy and NASA) and Laurent Montesi (Department of Geology).

During the placement, the W2 researcher will work on new techniques to obtain information on the geometry of caves based on their laser scans.

“I’ll also be working towards stable cooperation between the team I lead at Wrocław University of Science and Technology and the staff at the American university,’” adds the researcher.

Interactions of the immune system with the microbiome

The Faculty of Medicine’s Prof. Krystyna Dąbrowska specialises in the interactions of the human immune system with the microbiome. “I’m particularly interested in research into the phageome that is part of it, which is a collection of so-called good viruses that attack bacteria but don’t attack humans,” she says.

Next academic year, as a Fulbright Senior Award programme winner, she will be leaving for a placement at Stanford University Medical Center,

she will perform a series of studies using high-throughput molecular biology methods (omnics), particularly phage display epitope libraries.

“They’ll be oriented towards the identification of interactions between antibodies, T and B lymphocyte receptors, and the non-specific response of leukocytes to immunogenic antigenic epitopes of the microbiome,” explains Prof. Dąbrowska.

The researcher intends to uncover so far unrecognised epitopes that, through the immune system, have an important impact on human health, in particular distinguishing between beneficial and adverse elements of the microbiome.

“My research requires the latest bioinformatics tools and advanced computer models, which is why the Silicon Valley environment is the perfect place to embark on scientific ventures such as my project,” explains Prof. Dąbrowska.