Prof. Agata Daszkowska-Golec | Photo from a private gallery
Agata Daszkowska-Golec, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof.—the Deputy Dean for Research Promotion and Internationalisation at the USil Faculty of Natural Sciences—has become one of six winners of the Fulbright STEM Impact Award 2023/2024.
The Fulbright Program is a flagship international academic, educational and cultural exchange programme sponsored by the U.S. government. The programme provides passionate and talented students and scholars from over 160 countries with an opportunity to study, teach, carry out research and share their ideas.
The Fulbright Commission in Poland is the most prestigious institution of Polish-American scientific cooperation. STEM Impact Award scholarships are addressed to people representing STEM fields who manage research projects and have a supervisory role over researchers at Polish higher education and research institutions.
You can find the full list of laureates on the Fulbright website.
Prof. Agata Daszkowska-Golec sheds some light on the project she intends to carry out within the Award:
I am going to carry out my research project within the Fulbright STEM Impact Award 2023/2024 at the University of Minnesota in Prof. Gary Muehlbauer’s team. Prof. G. Muehlbauer is the leading authority in plant genetics; his research area is focused on barley genetics, which happens to be my main object of study. His research and expertise have played a crucial role in developing and improving barley genetics for the purpose of basic research (barley genome sequencing), and agricultural research (pathogen resilience).
The University of Minnesota has been famous for spawning the ‘Green Revolution’ (a historic period in research on wheat and barley, when semi-dwarf varieties contributed to a great advance in agriculture), and its graduate—Norman Borlaug—won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his achievements in agriculture and the world food supply. The University of Minnesota has made an enormous contribution to the development of agricultural science, especially in the area of breeding crops such as wheat and barley. Currently, the university is the world’s best centre for carrying out research on the genetics of cultivated plants.
The major research component of the project Exploring the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying barley response to drought stress induced by high Vapor Pressure Deficit is a detailed analysis of barley mutants related to ABA-signalling (abscisic acid) in drought stress conditions, both on physiological and transcriptomic levels. Interestingly, drought stress will be induced by vapour-pressure deficit (VPD) using the modern infrastructure at the University of Minnesota. The research is vital in terms of the skyrocketing frequency of heatwaves around the world, which affect the harvest. Moreover, the grant includes participation in research on barley breeding programmes in the United States together with research groups of the University of Minnesota.
Fulbright Scholarships are a prestigious and one-of-a-kind chance to cooperate with the best experts in a given field at American institutions. The fact that I professionally deal with barley genomics made my choice of the University of Minnesota only simpler.
Being a Fulbrighter has been my dream for a long time, and I am over the moon that I was striving to make this dream come true. The Fulbright Commission’s mission is thoroughly aligned with my beliefs and vision for further scientific and personal growth. I am positive that the Fulbright STEM Impact Award will enable me to establish a long-lasting collaboration with the University of Minnesota team. I want to use the skills I will acquire to improve the leadership of my research group and in applying for new research projects (together with the University of Minnesota). Needless to say, each scientific collaboration is also about people and relationships with them. I am confident that apart from scientific benefits, this adventure will result in new friendships.