The President of the Republic of Poland has conferred the title of professor in science to Tamara Kujawska from the IPPT PAN.
Prof. Tamara Kujawska graduated from the Faculty of Electronics at Kaunas University of Technology. In the years 1976-1980 she was a PhD student of the Doctoral Studies at the Warsaw University of Technology. She obtained PhD degree in Technical Sciences in 1980 at the IPPT PAN after defending her doctoral thesis entitled Dynamic focusing of an ultrasonic beam using annular transducers under the supervision of prof. Leszek Filipczyński. She completed her postdoctoral internship in 1982 in the Netherlands, at the Institute of Biophysics at the Limburg University in Maastricht, headed by prof. Jan Somer. The internship allowed for the experimental verification of the compliance of the computational results of the acoustic field generated by the phased annular array probe designed by T. Kujawska with the measurement results obtained using the ultrasonic probe built according to her design at the Institute of Biophysics and resulted in a number of articles published in prestigious scientific journals. These studies have made a significant contribution to improving the transverse resolution of ultrasound imaging. In the years 1983-1997 she participated in the work of research teams implementing projects financed through Scientific Research Committee (KBN) competitions, including conducting research on the analysis and assessment of the size of calcifications detected in breasts based on quantitative studies of acoustic shadowing on ultrasound images, as well as conducting research on temperature effects in strong acoustic fields used in new ultrasound technologies. In the years 1998-2007 she was engaged in theoretical and experimental studies of nonlinear propagation of focused pulsed ultrasound beams in inhomogeneous media, on new methods of describing nonlinear propagation of acoustic waves and on harmonic imaging of tissues using multitone nonlinear coding. In 2007, on the basis of her habilitation thesis entitled Research on nonlinear properties of biological media using ultrasonic waves, she was awarded by virtue of the resolution of the Scientific Council of IPPT PAN the academic degree of habilitated doctor in the field of engineering and technical sciences (discipline of electronics and electrical engineering). The conducted numerical and experimental studies enabled the development of a measurement method and the design as well as construction of an original laboratory stand for determining the nonlinearity parameter of biological media. Numerical simulations were carried out based on the numerical model of nonlinear propagation developed by prof. Janusz Wójcik. The obtained research results contributed to the further development of ultrasound methods used in medical therapy and diagnostics, especially for thermal or non-thermal destruction of tumors. In the years 2007-2016, the research team led by T. Kujawska developed a concept, research method and design solutions, as well as built a device for in vitro research on the efficacy and safety of anti-cancer sonodynamic therapy on various cancer cells. The practical application of this method on rat brain glioma cells was used in the doctoral dissertation of the Mossakowski Medical Research Institute (PAS) PhD student K. Bilmin, of which she was a co-supervisor. The results of these studies were used to optimize the conditions for local tissue heating using High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) and to model the heating process.
T. Kujawska is the originator and co-creator of the project of an automated HIFU ablation device guided by ultrasound imaging and used for preclinical research. The invention entitled Bimodal ultrasonic device for non-invasive destruction of solid cancer tumors in small animals has been patented (National Patent No. 233294). In 2017, based on this device, a unique laboratory stand for thermal destruction of solid tumors implanted in small animals was created at the Department of Ultrasound in IFTR PAS, which resulted in National Science Center (NCN) grants. The practical application of the proposed HIFU ablation technique in the treatment of breast cancer implanted in rats was used in the doctoral dissertation of the PhD student Ł. Fura, of which she was the supervisor.
T. Kujawska was the Main Investigator in 7 research projects of Scientific Research Committee (KBN), the Principal of research teams in 1 KBN project and 2 OPUS projects of NCN, the Task Manager in the BIOWIZJA project of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and the Coordinator of the BIOWIZJA scientific network consisting of 6 research institutes located on the OCHOTA Campus.
T. Kujawska was the Supervisor of 2 PhD students, the Co-Supervisor of 1 student of the Faculty of Mechatronics of the Warsaw University of Technology, who defended his engineering diploma thesis at the Institute of Metrology and Biomedical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology (2018), the Scientific Supervisor of several students doing summer internships at the Department of Ultrasound. She is currently the co-Supervisor of a PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Mossakowski Medical Research Institute PAS.
T. Kujawska was a member of the Scientific Council of the IPPT PAN for two terms (2007-2010, 2011-2014), was twice elected by the Polish acousticians community as a member of the Committee of Acoustics (KA) of the PAS, in 2020 she was the scientific secretary of the KA. In 2011, T. Kujawska was a member of the Organizing Committee and editor of the post-conference materials of the 31st International Symposium on Acoustical Imaging. She has been a member of the Polish Acoustical Society since 1995. For 2 terms, she was a member of the Editorial Board of the Archives of Acoustics journal. She is a laureate of several awards of the Director of IPPT PAN.
She is the author or co-author of 127 publications, including 41 publications indexed in ISI Web of Science, author of 2 monographs and co-author of 5 chapters in 5 monographs
