Professor of Physics (2003), habilitation in Physics (2010) at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
ICTER's Chair and POB Group Leader
Biomedical Imaging
Prof. dr hab. Maciej Wojtkowski (born 1975) is a physicist specializing in applied optics and medical and experimental physics. He started his scientific career at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. There he defended his master’s thesis, and then his doctoral thesis and postdoctoral thesis (habilitation). All degrees were awarded by the Institute of Physics, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Computer Science. From 1998 to 1999 he was employed as a researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria, and from 2003 to 2005 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Tufts New England Eye Center, Boston, USA.
Prof. Wojtkowski is the inventor of the first prototype clinical SdOCT device for eye imaging, built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and tested at the New England Eye Center in Boston USA, and the second built at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and tested at the Jurasz Ophthalmology Clinic in Bydgoszcz.[1][2][3] This device is used for non-invasive, non-contact eye examinations in clinics all over the world to monitor the onset, progression, and therapy of eye diseases.
Since 2016, Prof. Wojtkowski has headed the Department of Physical Chemistry of Biological Systems, and since 2019 the International Centre for Translational Eye Research – both institutions are subunits of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
He has authored more than 240 scientific publications, as well as several patents and patent applications. His work has been published in the following leading journals, among others: “Ophthalmology”, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, “Nature Medicine”, “Optics Express”, “Journal of Biomedical Optics” and “Optics Letters”. He was the first to design a spectral optical coherence tomograph used for non-invasive, non-contact eye examinations. This invention has found a wide application and is used in clinics all over the world. In 2012 he was honored with the prestigious Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) Award in Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering.
PhD in Optics at the University of Besançon
Director for Scientific Affairs
Former Director of Scientific Research CNRS in Besançon, France.
Technological expertise: novel MOEMS architectures for sensing with the development of miniature parallel on-chip microscopes, experience in transferring IP to industrial companies.
Served as National Secretary of the French Society of Optics (SFO).
MBA from Porto Business School, Portugal
Managing Director
Anna Pawlus has been associated with the optics and photonics community since 2016, starting her adventure as a lab manager and coordinator of a research group at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. She holds M.Sc. degree from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology and completed the International MBA programme at Porto Business School. She gained professional experience in the International Cooperation Office at the U.Porto, IBM Global Delivery Centre in Wroclaw, and Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação, mainly in the areas of coordination and management of international projects.
In 2011, she participated in a project organized by the US non-profit organisation TechnoServe in Africa (Mozambique), working on social entrepreneurship.
Anna volunteers for campaigns supporting gender equality & promotion of multiculturalism. She is also a change advocate in improving communication channels for scientific institutions.
Phd, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
Deputy Director for IP
ultrafast laser physics
Industrial RD&I experience. Laser systems development (8 years at MSquared UK), product development and customer relations, patent application preparation process, laser laboratory and high-tech production site design and organization, high-tech business development.
In 1996, he graduated from the Military Medical Academy in Łódź, Poland. After graduation, he served as a doctor on ships of the Polish Navy in Gdynia. In 2017, he defended with distinction at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow his doctoral thesis, entitled. “Changes in the content of selected bioelements in the clouded lens of the eye in patients with glaucoma and diabetes.”
Board Consultant for Ophthalmology
Dr. Piotr Chaniecki currently holds the position of chief surgeon at Prof. Zagorski’s Eye Surgery Center in Cracow, Poland.
From 2010 to 2020, he served as the Head of the Ophthalmic Department of the 5th Military Clinical Hospital in Cracow, and from 2020 to 2023 he was the Head of the Ophthalmic Department of the PCK Hospital in Gdynia.
He has more than 20 years of experience in eye surgery. He specializes in anterior eye surgery and retinal surgery. He performed more than 2,000 surgeries last year.
Dr. P. Chaniecki is the author of a unique surgical technique for intraocular lens replacement, awarded as the best surgical technique of 2019 by the American ophthalmology journal Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today.
In 2016 he received the Best Scientific Paper Award, “Composition of phacoemulsificated human lenses analyzed by infrared spectroscopy,” from the European Association for Vision and Eye Research.
His main professional interests are anterior and posterior eye surgery and conservative treatment of dry eye syndrome. He conducts scientific and didactic work in the field of intraocular implants in cooperation with the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow. He also collaborates with the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, Poland, studying the biochemical structure of lenses. He has authored and co-authored numerous scientific presentations and publications at home and abroad.
He continuously improves his qualifications by participating in international and national training courses and conferences, often as a lecturer. He is a member of the Polish Ophthalmological Society, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery and the Polish Society of Biomaterials.
Dr. Piotr Chaniecki joined ICTER in May, 2023 as the Board Consultant for Ophthalmology.
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