PIASA Awards

Inaugurated in 1995 to honor distinguished scholars and scientists for their scholarly achievements.

2024

PIASA AwardS

THE POLISH REVIEW

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Bronisław Ludwik Krzyżanowski Prize has been awarded to Dr. Dariusz Libionka of the Polish Academy of Sciences for “On Military Assistance to the Fighters of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw – 80 Years Later,” published in The Polish Review, vol. 68, no. 4 (December 2023)

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

With its remarkable range of published and unpublished sources and careful attention to time, place, and emotion, Dr. Dariusz Libionka’s “On Military Assistance to the Fighters of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw – 80 Years Later” is a tour de force.  Libionka’s sophisticated and expert analysis of Polish aid to the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 is a major contribution to the field of Holocaust studies, based on the strength of the argument and the wealth of primary and secondary materials consulted.  At every point, this landmark study makes history relevant to our own time.  It is an excellent example of unraveling how conflicting narratives develop on the basis of personal or, more often, political perspectives and become accepted by much of the public and academe.  Libionka successfully wades through these conflicting claims to provide a more balanced and realistic view of not only what occurred but what was even possible, given the strict control by the occupying German forces. This outstanding article demonstrates historical detective work that also has important implications for today.

THE NATURAL SCIENCES

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Casmir Funk Award has been awarded to Dr. Piotr Chomczynski, the founder and director of the Molecular Research Center of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

The Casimir Funk Award Committee is pleased to recommend that Dr. Piotr Chomczynski receive the 2024 PIASA Casimir Funk Award for his achievements in the biochemistry of nucleic acids, and in particular, for the development of a one-step method to purify RNA. The technique revolutionized molecular biology and biochemistry and has been adopted by many investigators. This is reflected in the extremely high number of citations, 80,000 by now, that the key paper authored by Dr. Chomczynski has received. As a result, in 2014, the paper was ranked 5th on the prestigious scientific journal Nature’s list of all-time most highly cited papers in science.

This nomination is influenced by the fact that this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded in the field of RNA research. In this RNA field, Dr. Chomczynski’s work played a key role.

THE HUMANITIES

We are pleased to announce that 2024 Waclaw Lednicki Award has been awarded to Dr. Agata Łuksza of the University of Warsaw for her book Polish Theatre Revisited: Theatre Fans in the Nineteenth Century, published by the University of Iowa Press.

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

Polish Theatre Revisited offers a lucid and insightful study of Polish theatre fandom in the late 19th century. Dr. Łuksza skillfully navigates the methodological challenges posed by the loss of material due to the vicissitudes of history, using period sources beyond direct cultural productions of fans. Her innovative approach includes analyzing ephemera like scribbled notes and postcard collections, which allows her to fill historical gaps with imaginative research.

The book reveals the dynamic relationship between celebrity culture and modernity, showing how each influenced the other. Łuksza’s focus on the passionate “theatremaniacs,” provides a valuable perspective in theatre studies. By contextualizing fan practices within broader cultural trends, she paints a vivid picture of 19th-century Polish theatre fandom. The historiographic strategy of this monograph creates new terms and conditions for understanding audiences and actors in the performative world of theatre.  

The committee also decided to award an honorable mention to Dr. Sławomir Dobrzański for Complete Piano Works of Feliks Łabuński.

APPLIED SCIENCES

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Sendzimir Award has been awarded to Dr. Wojciech Zaremba for his pioneering contributions to artificial intelligence—as a founding member of OpenAI, a leader in robotics and machine learning, and a key architect behind transformative tools such as GPT, Codex, and GitHub Copilot. He initially led OpenAI’s work on robotics, notably creating a robotic arm capable of solving Rubik’s Cube. His work continues to reshape how humans interact with technology and opened new frontiers in language and code generation.

POLISH AND EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN HISTORY

We are pleased to announce that 2024 Oscar Halecki Award has been awarded to Dr. Tomasz Grusiecki of Boise State University for his book, Transcultural Things and the Spectre of Orientalism in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania, published by Manchester University Press in 2023.

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

Transcultural Things uses rich, contextual interpretation of material objects from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – maps, costume, illustrated histories, and so-called “Polish” carpets – to advance an ambitious argument about the inherent transferability and heterogeneity of cultural artifacts. The book boldly challenges prevailing narratives of national distinctiveness and Orientalism, including arguments about the “invention of Eastern Europe,” that have predominated in Polish and Western scholarship. For the creators and consumers of these objects, conceptions that mattered more to later generations, such as belonging to Europe or the Ottoman origins of “Sarmatism” were largely irrelevant. Rather, as Grusiecki shows, the invention of tradition readily makes putatively exogenous things such as a fur-fitted overcoat or ornamental carpet seem one’s own, and it is this largely universal process that scholars need to unpack in its historical and spatial context. Transcultural Things is a thought-provoking work that generates new ideas on seemingly settled topics, while offering a readily transferable methodology for interpreting material culture in other places and times. Without any hint of Polish special pleading, Grusiecki succeeds in that elusive task: writing Polish-Lithuanian history and culture into globalized trends and discussions. These include unflagging controversies over nationalism and transnationalism. He shows that the overlapping borderlands of early modern east-central Europe and west-central Asia are just as fruitful a field in which to test the applicability of such concepts as the nineteenth- and twentieth-century world.

POLISH-JEWISH STUDIES

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award has been awarded to Dr. Janine Holc of the Loyola University of Maryland for her book, The Weavers of Trautenau: Jewish Female Forced Labor in the Holocaust, published by Brandeis University Press in 2023.

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

Dr. Janine Holc’s book stands out in its originality, broad scope, and innovative methodology. Sensitively and perceptively, she analyses hundreds of late testimonies to produce a unique and intimate collective biography of a group of Polish-Jewish women, which highlights questions of human agency, gender, inter-group relations, modes of survival, and meaning-making. This is a well-written and well-structured book which adds an important and unknown aspect to our understanding of the Polish-Jewish experience during and after the Holocaust.

BEST EDITED MULTI-AUTHOR SCHOLARLY VOLUME

We are pleased to announce that 2024 Anna M. Cienciala Award has been awarded to

Dr. Halina Goldberg of Indiana University and Dr. Nancy Sinkoff of Rutgers University for their co-edited volume, Polish-Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital: Centering the Peripherypublished by Rutgers University Press in 2023.

Below is an excerpt from the award committee’s laudation for this remarkable work:

Polish Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital: Centering the Periphery, edited by Dr. Halina Goldberg and Dr. Nancy Sinkoff and published by Rutgers University Press is a remarkable, indeed groundbreaking volume, which examines the rich diversity of Polish Jewish culture in the first decades of the twentieth century. While other studies have focused on interwar Poland’s capital city, contributors to this volume examine various manifestations of Jewish culture in the performing arts, architecture, and literary production in interwar Poland’s second cities—Łódź, Wiłno, Lwów and Kraków—and other sites which challenge the classification of Warsaw as the metropol of Polish Jewish culture on the one hand, and popular “fiddler on the roof” stereotypes of the shtetl on the other. Every chapter in this book is characterized by in-depth research, acutely insightful analysis, and superb narration. The success of a volume like this is not measured only in the questions that it answers, but also by the possibilities it raises for future research. By both standards, Polish Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital is an outstanding achievement.

The committee also decided to award an honorable mention to Dr. Stanley Bill and Dr. Simon Lewis, eds., Multicultural Commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania and Its Afterlives, published by University of Pittsburgh Press in 2023.

DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT

We are pleased to announce that 2024 Susan Lotarski Award has been awarded to

Dr. Joanna Rostopowicz Clark, Professor Emerita of Rutgers University, currently affiliated with the Princeton Research Forum.

and Dr. Krzysztof Jasiewicz of Washington and Lee University.

Below are excerpts from the award committees’ laudations for their remarkable work:

Joanna Rostopowicz Clark is a literary critic, scholar, and writer whose work bridges academic research and creative expression. Born in Warsaw, she began her career as a senior researcher at the Center for the Research of Public Opinion in Warsaw before emigrating to the United States in 1971. She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and went on to teach at Rutgers University and Hunter College. An active member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA), she has also been involved with the Princeton Research Forum and various volunteer organizations.

A literary critic, scholar, and writer, she has brought Polish literature and culture to new audiences through her teaching, publications, and translations. She contributed to leading journals including Polin, The Polish Review, Teksty Drugie, and Akcent. One of her best-known articles, “Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński: A Poet-Hero,” appeared in Polin in 2000. During the 1980s, she collaborated with Philip Roth as part of his work editing Penguin’s series Writers from the Other Europe. She has also served as an editor for Polski Biuletyn Socjologiczny (1968–71) and contributed to publications such as The Nation and Poland’s Survival.

In addition to her academic contributions, Joanna Rostropowicz Clark is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories, all published by Norbertinum in Lublin, Poland, between 2010 and 2017.

In honoring Prof. Rostropowicz Clark today, we recognize not only a lifetime of scholarship but also her unwavering dedication to Polish culture, her generous mentorship, and her quiet, persistent contributions to the intellectual life of our community.

****

Throughout his career Dr. Krzysztof Jasiewicz has studied political behavior. Under communism he carried out important studies that uncovered the true state of public opinion during Solidarity and Martial Law and following democratization, voting behavior. His career has been largely split between the Polish Academy of Sciences (1977-1993) and Washington and Lee (1994-2024), where he held a named chair in sociology.

He has also held a number visiting professorships and fellowships at a number of prestigious colleges and universities including the University of Florida, Harvard University, the National Endowment for Democracy, Oxford University, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Roanoke College. His scholarly output in four languages (English, Polish, German and French) exceeds 120 contributions, including articles, book chapters, and essays. His best work has been anthologized in two recent books, one in Polish and one in English: Roads to and from Democracy: Studies in Polish Politics, 1980-2020 (Berlin: Peter Lang 2023), and Na ulicy i przy urnie. Studia o zachowaniach politycznych Polaków, 1980- 2020 (Warsaw: Scholar 2022). (…)

Professor Jasiewicz has performed a remarkable number of important services to the field of Polish Studies. From 1985-1994 he was a member of the editorial board of Krytyka (underground prior to 1989). In 1990 he was appointed the founding director of the electoral studies unit at the Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (ISP PAN) in Warsaw. He has also been a member of the editorial boards of Studia Polityczne (since 1991) and Studia Socjologiczne (since 2009). He was a charter member of the Polish Studies Association, its President (1996-99) and Vice President (1991-96). Most significantly from 2013 to 2023 he and Wendy Bracewell were the joint editors of East European Politics and Societies & Cultures (EEPS). During his tenure the journal published 215 articles in which Poland was the subject, either as a single country, or in combination with others. The articles were submitted by 152 scholars based in Poland, as well as dozens of scholars based in other countries.

In many ways he is the father of modern electoral studies in Poland and the author of a large number of influential studies in this area. In addition to this, he has always been generous with his time, promoting the general understanding of Poland across the disciplines in the social sciences and humanities through his remarkable record of service.

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW

We are pleased to announce that 2024 Karol Pilarczyk Award has been awarded to Oko.press.

The Pilarczyk Award recognizes individuals and organizations whose work furthers the values of democracy, transparency, and the rule of law. It supports writers, researchers, journalists, and artists whose contributions help us better understand the complexities of Polish society and culture, and who challenge us to imagine and build more just and open societies. In this spirit, OKO.press is a profoundly worthy recipient.
Founded in 2016 by a group of courageous journalists and editors—among them Piotr Pacewicz, Helena Łuczywo, and Seweryn Blumsztajn—OKO.press quickly established itself as a leading force in investigative journalism, fact-checking, and civic oversight in Poland
OKO.press is a collective endeavor, sustained by thousands of individual readers and donors, and guided by an unwavering belief in the power of information to hold the powerful to account.

On the OKO.press website, one can read: “But to make it happen we need something that every democracy, young and old one, needs: independent, reliable media. This is an ever-unfulfilling need because every government has to have an eye which will control it.
At a time when media independence has been under siege, OKO.press has served as a vital watchdog, exposing abuses of power, defending truth, and amplifying voices too often silenced. They spoke for the opponents of the destruction of the judiciary, against the curtailment of women’s rights, the inhumane treatment of refugees or sexual minorities and so on. OKO.press is a voice of those who feel their rights are not respected and the fundamental freedoms are at risk. This is journalism as public service—fierce, transparent, and committed to democratic principles.

EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE TO PIASA

The Tadeusz V. Gromada Award for Exceptional Service to PIASA

 

Graduate Student Award

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Distinguished Awardees

include

  • 1995 – Dr. Andrzej S. Kaminski, Georgetown University
  • 1996 – Dr. Robert Blobaum, University of West Virginia
  • 1997 – Dr. Piotr S. Wandycz, Yale University
  • 1998 – Dr. Timothy Snyder, Harvard University
  • 2001 – Dr. Brian Allen Porter, University of Michigan
  • 2003 – Dr. Daniel Stone, University of Winnipeg
  • 2005 – Dr. Gershon David Hundert, McGill University
  • 2007 – Dr. Marci Shore, Yale University
  • 2014 – Dr. M.B.B. Biskupski, Central Connecticut State University
  • 2014 – Dr. James Pula, Purdue University – North Central
  • 2017 – Dr. Keely Stauter-Halsted, University of Illinois-Chicago
  • 2018 – Dr. Paul Knoll, University of Southern California
  • 2019 – Dr. Anna Műller, University of Michigan-Dearborn
  • 2020 – Dr. Dominic A. Pacyga, Columbia College (Chicago)
  • 2021 – Dr. Molly Pucci, Assistant Professor of Twentieth-Century European History, Trinity College Dublin and Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London
  • 2022 – Dr. Kenneth B Moss, the University of Chicago Honorable Mention: Dr. Barbara Klich-Kluczewska, Jagiellonian University
  • 2023 – Dr. Małgorzata Fidelis, University of Illinois Honorable Mention: Dr. Kyrill Kunakhovich, University of Virginia.

  • 2024 – Tomasz Grusiecki, Boise State University.
  • 1995 – Dr. Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University
  • 1996 – Dr. Alexander Wolszczan, Pennsylvania State University
  • 1997 – Dr. Hilary Koprowski, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia
  • 1998 – Dr. Peter T. Wolczanski, Cornell University
  • 2001 – Dr. Andrew Wojcicki, Ohio State University
  • 2003 – Dr. Waclaw Szybalski, McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 2005 – Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot, Yale University
  • 2008 – Dr. Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • 2013 – Dr. Maria Siemionow, Cleveland Clinic
  • 2014 – Dr. Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz, New York Medical College
  • 2016 – Prof. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University
  • 2017 – Dr. Andrew V. Schally, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Miami
  • 2018 – Dr. Krzysztof Palczewski, University of California-Irviine
  • 2019 – Dr. Jack W. Szostak, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital
  • 2020 – Dr. Henryk Iwaniec, Rutgers University
  • 2021 – Witold Nazarewicz, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor and Chief Scientific Officer for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University
  • 2022 – Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, New York University School of Medicine, and Director of NYU’s Alzheimer Disease Center
  • 2023 – Dr. Alex Wlodawer, National Institutes of Health
  • 2024 – Dr. Piotr Chomczyński, Founder and Director of the Molecular Research Center, Cincinnati.

  • 1995 – Dr. Helena Znaniecka Lopata, Loyola University, Chicago
  • 1995 – Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Center for Strategic & International Studies
  • 1997 – Dr. Adam Podgorecki, Carleton University & University of Warsaw
  • 1998 – Eva Hoffman, author
  • 2001 – Dr. Grzegorz Ekiert, Harvard University and Dr. Jan Kubik, Rutgers University.
  • 2007 – Dr. Michael Bernhard, Pennsylvania State University
  • 2017 – Dr. Marysia H. Galbraith, University of Alabama
  • 2018 – Dr. Evgeny Finkel, Johns Hopkins University
  • 2019 – Dr. Jeffrey S. Kopstein, University of California-Irvine and Dr. Jason Wittenberg, University of California-Berkeley
  • 2020 – Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University
  • 2021 – Geneviève Zubrzycki, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, the Center for European Studies, and the Copernicus Program in Polish Studies, University of Michigan
  • 2022 – Dr. Agnieszka Graff, University of Warsaw, and Dr. Elżbieta Korolczuk, Södertörn University (Stockholm) and University of Warsaw
  • 2023 – Dr. Tomasz Zarycki, University of Warsaw
  • 2024 – Magdalena Waligórska, Humboldt University, Berlin Honorable Mention: Jack Palmer, University of Leeds.
  • 1996 – Dr. Tomas A. Venclova, Yale University
  • 1998 – Dr. Beth C. Holmgren, University of North Carolina
  • 2001 – Dr. Jan C. Cavanaugh, Seattle, Washington
  • 2003 – Dr. Roman Koropeckyj, UCLA
  • 2005 – Dr. Karen Majewski, Polish American Historical Association (PAHA), Orchard Lake Schools, Orchard Lake, Michigan
  • 2007 – Dr. Marek Bartelik, Cooper Union, New York
  • 2014 – Adrian Prawica, director and filmmaker, Chicago, Illinois
  • 2017 – Dr. Ursula Phillips, University College London
  • 2018 – Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, author and translator, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 2019 – Dr. Marek Haltof, Northern Michigan University
  • 2020 – Dr. Grażyna J. Kozaczka, Cazenovia College
  • 2022 – Dr. Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Ithaca College Honorable Mention: Dr. Aleksandra Kremer, Harvard University
  • 2024 – Agata Łuksza, Warsaw University Honorable Mention: Sławomir Dobrzański, Kansas State University
  • 1996 – Dr. Stanislaw Mrozowski, Professor Emeritus, SUNY at Buffalo
  • 1997 – Dr. Stanislaw Gorczyca, Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, Krakow
  • 1998 – Dr. Thaddeus B. Massalski, Carnegie Mellon University
  • 2001 – Dr. Wladyslaw Koleczko, President of the Polish Association of Inventors and Industrial Innovators in Warsaw
  • 2017 – Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, Los Altos Hills, California
  • 2018 – Dr. Tomasz Imielinski, Rutgers University
  • 2019 – Halina Zyczynski, MD, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
  • 2020 – Dr. Władek Minor, University of Virginia and Dr. Zbyszek Otwinowski, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas
  • 2021 – Witold F. Krajewski, Rose and Joseph Summers Chair in Water Research Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa
  • 2022 – Dr. Marcin Żukowski, co-founder and vice president of engineering at Snowflake Computing
  • 2023 – Dr. Tomasz Wierzbicki, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • 2024 – Dr. Wojciech Zaremba, Co-founder and Robotics Research Manager, OpenAI.

  • 1995 – Dr. Andrzej Chmielarz, Institute of Military History, Warsaw
  • 2015 – Dr. Robert Blobaum, West Virginia University
  • 2017 – Dr. Rafal Wnuk, Catholic University of Lublin, and Dr. Piotr M. Majewski, Warsaw University
  • 2018 – Dr. Adam Chmielewski, University of Wrocław
  • 2019 – Dr. Christopher Garbowski, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin
  • 2020 – Dr. Anna Krakus, University of Copenhagen
  • 2021 – Dr. Anna Muller, University of Michigan-Dearborn
  • 2022 – Dr. Dariusz Stola, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • 2023 – Dr. Vitalii Borymskyi, Institute of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences
  • 2024 – Dr. Dariusz Libionka, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • 2007 – Dr. Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas
  • 2014 – Dr. Paul Knoll, University of Southern California
  • 2018 – Dr. Jan Kubik, Rutgers University
  • 2019 – Dr. Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University
  • 2020 – Dr. Anna Frajlich-Zając, Columbia University
  • 2021 – Roman Koropeckyj, Professor of Slavic Languages, Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles
  • 2022 – Dr. Irena Grudzińska Gross, Professor, Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Madeline G. Levine, Kenan Professor of Slavic Literatures Emerita, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • 2023 – Dr. Larry Wolff, New York University
  • 2024 – Joanna Rostropowicz Clark, Princeton Research Forum, and Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Washington and Lee University.
  • 2021 - Dr. Eliyana Adler, Pennsylvania State University
  • 2022 – Dr. Alina Molisak, Warsaw University Honorable Mention: Dr. Jan Rybak, Central European University
  • 2023 – Dr. Yechiel Weizman, Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Geneviève Zubrzycki, University of Michigan
  • 2024 – Janine Holc, Loyola University of Maryland
  • 2021 – Dr. Silvia Dapia, City University of New York
  • 2022 – Dr. Katharina Friedla, Hoover Institution Stanford and Dr. Markus Nesselrodt, Europe-Universität Viadrina
  • 2023 – Dr. Irena Grudzińska Gross and Dr. Konrad Matyjaszek, both from the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences Honorable Mention: Dr. Katarzyna Fazan, Jagiellonian University, Dr. Michal Kobialka, University of Minnesota, and Dr. Bryce Lease, Royal Holloway, University of London.
  • 2024 – Halina Goldberg, Indiana University, and Nancy Sinkoff, Rutgers University Honorable Mention: Stanley Bill, Cambridge University, and Simon Lewis, University of Bremen.
  • 2023 – Marta Gorczynska, human rights lawyer and co-founder of the NGO Grupa Granica (The Border Group), and head of the Migration Department at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw.
  • 2023 – Agnieszka Holland, filmmaker, and Wojciech Sadurski, University of Sydney.
  • 2024 –The Team of Journalists at OKO Press, Warsaw.

Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland

The Bronisław Malinowski Award

Named for the eminent social scientist and founding member and first president of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, the Bronisław Malinowski Award recognizes a scholar in one of the fields of the social sciences who has written a book or seminal publication of particular value and significance dealing with an aspect of the Polish experience.  In past instances, the Malinowski Award has also recognized a scholar’s outstanding body of published work. The book, outstanding publication, or body of work should represent exemplary scholarly research published in the fields encompassed by the social sciences, including anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology, according to standards recognized by those disciplines. The recipient of the Bronisław Malinowski Award in the Social Sciences will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during the PIASA’s annual conference.

Criteria:

  • The book, publication, or body of work must be written in the English language.
  • The book must have been published during calendar year designated in the annual call for nominations published and posted in the late summer or early fall of each year. If the nomination is based on a body of work, it must include a significant publication within the last five calendar years.
  • Publications containing original research or new, original syntheses are eligible for consideration; edited collections and self-published books are ineligible.

The Ludwik Krzyżanowski Prize

Each year, the Ludwik Krzyżanowski Prize is awarded for the best article published in the preceding volume/year of The Polish Review.

To be considered for the Prize, authors should submit a pdf of their published TPR  articles, along with a brief cover letter, to an award committee appointed by the PIASA Board of Directors.  Book review essays are not eligible.

The Prize is named after Ludwik Krzyżanowski who served as Editor-in-Chief of The Polish Review from 1956 to 1986.

The Casmir Funk Award

The Casimir Funk Award was established by PIASA to recognize excellence, individual achievement, and innovative contributions in the field of Natural Sciences. The award is named after Casimir Funk, who is best known for his pioneering research that led to the discovery of vitamins and for defining the role of vitamins in nutrition.

Exceptional Polish American scientists, or scientists of Polish ancestry, who live and work in the United States are eligible for the Award.  Natural Sciences include life science and physical science, comprising biology, physics, chemistry, earth science, and astronomy, and related disciplines. Mathematics is also within the scope of the Casimir Funk Award.

Nominators need to provide a nomination letter stating the achievements on which the nomination is based and a curriculum vitae of the nominee that includes a bibliography of significant publications. Additional letters of support may be provided. Nomination is made by submitting the requested materials to the Chair of the Award Selection Committee by the deadline designated in the annual call for nominations, published and posted in the late summer or early fall. The Casimir Funk Natural Sciences Award winner will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference.

Unsuccessful nominees will automatically be reconsidered for the Award for the subsequent four years. Nominators will be given the opportunity to update the nomination for those being reconsidered.

The Waclaw Lednicki Award

Named after the first director of the Literature and Arts Section of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Wacław Lednicki Award recognizes the most outstanding book or creative work published, produced, or presented in any of the fields encompassed within the Humanities as defined by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and related to the field of Polish Studies, broadly defined. However, because another PIASA prize, the Oskar Halecki Award in Polish and East-Central European History, has been created to recognize outstanding works of history, works in this field should be nominated for the Halecki Award. The recipient of the Wacław Lednicki Award in the Humanities will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during the PIASA’s Annual Conference.

Criteria:

  • If the nomination is based on a book, film, play or literary translation, it must be written or rendered in the English language.
  • The book or cultural product must have been published or appeared in the year designated in the call for nominations published and posted annually in late summer or early fall.
  • Books containing original research or new, original syntheses are eligible for consideration; edited collections and self-publications are ineligible.

The Sendzimir Applied Science Award

The Tadeusz Sendzimir Applied Sciences Award was established by PIASA to recognize excellence, individual achievement and innovative contributions in the field of applied sciences. The award is named after Tadeusz Sendzimir, who received worldwide recognition for his outstanding and numerous contributions to metallurgy.

Exceptional Polish American scientists or engineers who live and work in the United States are eligible for the Award. The field of applied sciences includes branches of science and technology in which existing scientific knowledge is applied to develop practical applications, inventions or other technological advancements. Examples of disciplines within applied sciences include (broadly understood) computer sciences, engineering, environmental science, health science, and many others.

Nominators need to provide a nomination letter and a curriculum vitae of the nominee that includes a bibliography of significant publications or a list of accomplishments. Additional letters of support may be provided. Nomination is made by submitting the requested materials to the Chair of the Award Selection Committee by the deadline designated in the annual call for nominations, published and posted in the late summer or early fall. The Tadeusz Sendzimir Applied Sciences Award winner will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference. 

Unsuccessful nominees will automatically be reconsidered for the Award for the subsequent four years. Nominators will be given the opportunity to update the nomination for those being reconsidered.

The Oscar Halecki Award

Named for an eminent historian and founding member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, the Oskar Halecki Award recognizes a scholar in the field of Polish and East-Central European history who has written a book of particular value and significance dealing with the Polish experience or including the Polish experience within a larger East-Central European context. The book or body of work should represent exemplary historical research and writing. The recipient of the Oskar Halecki Award in Polish and East-Central European history will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference.

Criteria:

  • The book or body of work must be written in the English language.
  • The book must have been published during calendar year designated in the annual call for nominations published and posted in the late summer or early fall of each year.
  • Books containing original research or new, original syntheses are eligible for consideration; edited collections and self-publications are ineligible.

The Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award

We are pleased to announce that the  2024 Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award has been awarded to Janine Holc of the Loyola University of Maryland for her book, The Weavers of Trautenau: Jewish Female Forced Labor in the Holocaust published by Brandeis University Press in 2023.

Janine Holc’s book stands out in its originality, broad scope, and innovative methodology. Sensitively and perceptively, she analyses hundreds of late testimonies to produce a unique and intimate collective biography of a group of Polish-Jewish women, which highlights questions of human agency, gender, inter-group relations, modes of survival, and meaning-making. This is a well-written and well-structured book which adds an important and unknown aspect to our understanding of the Polish-Jewish experience during and after the Holocaust.

The Anna M. Cienciala Award

The Anna M. Cienciala Award has been established to recognize the importance of collaborative scholarship and to honor Anna Cienciala, co-editor, with Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski, of a major collaborative work, Katyn: A Crime without Punishment (Yale University Press, 2008).  Eligible books must be edited multi-author collections of scholarly articles or essays in the various fields of Polish studies broadly understood. Editors and contributors need not be members of PIASA. The recipient(s) of the Anna M. Cienciala Award will receive a $1000 prize and will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference.

Criteria:

  • The book must be written in the English language.
  • The book must have been published during calendar year designated in the annual call for nominations published and posted in the late summer or early fall of each year.
  • Publications containing original research or new, original syntheses are eligible for consideration; self-published books are ineligible.

The Susan Lotarski Distinguished Achievement Award

PIASA’s Susanne M. Lotarski Distinguished Achievement Award recognizes an individual with a long-standing record of exemplary scholarly publications related to Poland and/or significant professional achievements, as well as a record of distinguished service to the profession and public advocacy for Polish studies or Polish culture. The recipient of the Susanne M. Lotarski Distinguished Achievement Award will be selected by PIASA’s Board of Directors and will receive a $1000 cash prize. The recipient will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference.

Candidates from the previous year who were not selected are eligible to be considered again. However, their nominations need to be resubmitted to ensure they are included in the current year’s review process.

The Karol Pilarczyk Award

The Karol Pilarczyk Foundation Award furthers democracy and the rule of law by funding Polish and non-Polish citizens working in the areas of Polish studies and culture who seek to facilitate these broad goals. It is intended to support individual academics, journalists, writers, researchers, scientists, and artists by recognizing and publicizing the recipient’s accomplishments and/or promoting their future endeavors as relevant to the award’s general purpose through scholarship and creative work. The recipient of the Karol Pilarczyk Foundation Award will receive a $5000 prize and will also be recognized during PIASA’s annual conference.

Criteria:

  • The nomination should be based on a book, article, film, play, literary work, or project promoting democracy and the rule of law.
  • The nominee’s accomplishments or future project must be related to Poland or, if not directly related to Poland, must be authored, created, or proposed by a person of Polish heritage, broadly understood.

Tadeusz V. Gromada Award

The Tadeusz V. Gromada award is name after Tadeusz V. Gromada, who served the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America in a variety of positions, including Executive Director and as its President, for fifty years, from 1971 until his retirement in 2011. The award will be bestowed occasionally on a deserving individual for exceptional contributions over time as a member or officer of the PIASA Board. On those occasions, the recipient will be honored at PIASA’s annual conference with a non-monetary plaque.

The Krystyna Olszer Prize

The Krystyna Olszer Prize for the best article by a graduate student published in The Polish Review

Every two years, in even-numbered years, the Krystyna Olszer Prize is awarded for the best article published in the preceding two volumes of The Polish Review.

To be eligible for the Prize, authors of articles must be graduate students in good standing at the time they submit their manuscripts to The Polish Review.

To be considered for the Prize, authors should submit a pdf of their published TPR articles, along with a brief cover letter, to an award committee, appointed by the PIASA Board of Directors.  Book review essays are not eligible.

The Prize is named after Krystyna Olszer who served as Senior Associate Editor of The Polish Review for many years.  During her tenure at the Review, she performed outstanding service as mentor to graduate students.