Award of the Prime Minister for PhD, Eng. Mariusz Szkoda from the Faculty of Chemistry | Gdańsk University of Technology

PhD, Eng. Mariusz Szkoda was among the twelve best young scientists from all over Poland who received the Prime Minister's Award for a distinguished doctoral dissertation and scientific activity in 2018. Doctoral dissertation ‘Oxide layers TiO2 and MoO3 as visible photoanodes’ was submitted for the prize by Professor Jacek Namieśnik, rector of Gdańsk University of Technology in 2016-2019. The doctorate supervisor was prof. PhD, DSc Anna Lisowska-Oleksiak, and the assistant supervisor – PhD, DSc, Eng. Katarzyna Siuzdak from the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The prize of the Prime Minister is to honor not only the doctoral dissertation itself, but also the broad scientific achievements of PhD Mariusz Szkoda. The young scientist has 35 publications from the so-called Philadelphia list, two patent applications (one of which was awarded in the ‘Technicon-Innovations 2015’ competition), three other publications and 40 communications.

In his current research work PhD, Eng. Mariusz Szkoda focuses on, among others, solar conversion and storage issues. This year, he was awarded in the 10th edition of the Leader of the National Center for Research and Development program and received research funding of almost PLN 1.5 million. Thanks to this, he will be able to build a prototype photosensitive capacitor in the next three years. It is to be an integrated device that performs the functions of both conversion and storage of solar energy.

- I would like this device to be useful in everyday life - emphasizes the scientist - The photo-capacitor will act as a portable device that will allow charging the supercapacitor in sunny conditions and using the accumulated energy e.g. at night to charge the phone or other electrical devices (e.g. in a tent) ), i.e. you can say that it will act as a power bank, which can be charged with free sunlight. Therefore, it must have small dimensions and a lot of electrochemical capacity. Thanks to the fact that solar energy will be converted and stored in one device, there will be no losses in the transmission of energy (from one device to another), as is the case now when we have two separate conversion and storage devices.

- Nowadays, many people strive to measure their scientific careers primarily with scientific titles. Yet it is also important, maybe even more, to focus on the work, research, not only on algorithms on how to achieve the next step of a professional career. This is the key to be closer to innovative solutions and PhD. Mariusz Szkoda has such a key - says about a young scientist from her team, previously a doctorate student, prof. Anna Lisowska-Oleksiak. - His research is also a building block in the fight against climate change. Facing the climate catastrophe, it is the responsibility of us, scientists, to direct all forces and talents in this field.

Dr. Mariusz Szkoda has also won a number of other awards. After completing his MSc studies, he was awarded the Rector's scholarship and the Graduate’s Gold Badge and began his doctoral studies, which he completed last year. Since October 2017, he has also been an assistant at the Faculty of Chemistry, and since 2019 an assistant professor. Winner of the first degree of the 24th Polish national diploma thesis competition for the prize Professor Jerzy I. Skowroński for the best master's thesis, he also received the PTCH award for the best doctoral dissertation defended at the GUT Faculty of Chemistry, a scholarship holder of the Start-Foundation for Polish Science, as well as a scholarship holder of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for the academic year 2016/2017 and 2017 / 2018.

 Photo: Krzysztof Krzempek / Gdańsk University of Technology