The President of the Republic of Poland has conferred the title of professor in science to dr hab. Barbara Gambin from the IPPT PAN.
Prof. dr hab. Barbara Gambin is a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics (currently Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics) of the University of Warsaw. At IPPT PAN, she defended her doctoral thesis entitled Elastic Waves in Stochastically Inhomogeneous Half-space, supervised by Prof. Kazimierz Sobczyk. The PhD thesis was developed together with the Department of Theoretical and Applied Physics at the University of Dresden (GDR). After defending her doctoral thesis, she received a one-year German research scholarship (DAAD) and stayed at the Faculty of Theoretical and Applied Physics of the University of Stuttgart (Germany), and then, after a few years, she received a prestigious half-year-long scholarship from the Max-Plank Foundation to continue theoretical research conducted in Stuttgart. These studies contributed to the understanding of the foundations of non-local theories of continuous media with periodic and random microstructure. B. Gambin received her Ph.D. hab. technical sciences based on the submitted habilitation thesis entitled The Influence of Microstructure on the Properties of Elastic, Piezoelectric, and Thermoelastic Composites, which summarizes her main achievements in the field of composite theory (complex materials). Research and optimal design of composites, due to the specific, beneficial properties of modern materials, is still an important trend of theoretical and experimental research conducted at IPPT in several research teams. B. Gambin also conducted work related to bioengineering, particularly on the use of thermal effects arising under the influence of the ultrasonic field in soft tissues, including to use of recorded backscattered ultrasonic signals to build a non-invasive acoustic thermometer. This work was carried out by a team of several people at the Department of Ultrasound, and combined experimental research with theoretical analysis of digitized data collected during experiments, particularly using advanced machine learning methods. Production of magnetic nanoparticles in IPPT by Dr. Eng. Marcin Krajewski from the Department of Mechanics of Materials made it possible to start basic research on the impact of delivering magnetic nanoparticles to soft tissue to enhance the effects of innovative, dual ultrasonic-magnetic hyperthermia. This hyperthermia is intended to enable non-invasive treatment of cancers located in areas of the human body that are difficult to access with other hyperthermic techniques. B. Gambin was the supervisor of three doctorates and gave lectures at the Doctoral Studies at IPPT, and gave semester-long seminar lectures for researchers at the Poznań University of Technology and the Pedagogical University of Krakow. She cooperated with foreign universities, including the Universities of Dresden and Stuttgart (1975 - 1987) in the field of composite theory, with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2008 - 2015) in the field of fracture mechanics, with the Center for Theoretical Physics, CNRS, Marseille (2005 - 2008) in the field of applications of continued fractions, with Abo University in Finland (2007 - 2011) in the field of systems biology, with the Belarusian State University in Minsk (2009-2019) in the field of applied mathematics, as well as with many Polish universities such as Warsaw University of Technology, Poznan University of Technology, AGH University, Rzeszow University of Technology, Kielce University of Technology, Pedagogical University of Krakow. Prof. Gambin was the manager of 2 OPUS projects (NCN), as well as a contractor in several other projects, Polish and European. Her non-scientific professional activity included the positions of vice-chairman of the Scientific Council of the IPPT PAN, Deputy Director of IPPT for General Affairs, scientific secretary organizing a dozen or so international scientific conferences, an editor in two journals Engineering Transactions (editorial member) and the Archives of Acoustics (deputy editor-in-chief), and of a head of the Biomechanics Laboratory.
