Anna Ignaszak

Background

About Anna Ignaszak

I am a chemical technologist with master’s in chemical engineering and PhD in materials engineering awarded from the top universities in my native Poland. My postgraduate education in Canada started in 2007 at the Department Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC), followed by my appointment as a research associate at the National Research Council Canada (NRC), where I was working in area of electrocatalysis. Furthermore, I received competitive fellowship awarded by Carl-Zeiss Foundation that required me to move to Germany to fulfill this award at the Friedrich-Schiller Universität (FSU) in Jena. I returned to Canada in July 2015 to begin my academic career as an independent PI. My immersion in highly competitive German system and learning Canadian standards of research at UBC and NRC has had a significant impact on how I conduct my research since then. Moving back to Canada, I had an excellent track record of delivering my own research. While working at UBC, NRC and at FSU Jena, I have learnt what is needed to perform on an international stage, to be resilient and how to succeed as a leader. In doing so at UNB and now at Brock University, I am fortunate to attract the best students. These young scientists demonstrate impressive creativity and productivity in electrochemical diagnostic research in critical areas that will directly impact society: electrochemical detection of infectious diseases, viral diseases, and early diagnosis of cancers, all with the aid of electrochemistry. My goals are… to develop electrochemical devices with discrete medical applications. …to promote importance of electrochemistry in many applications - from electrochemistry-driven clean energy to medical diagnostics… to generate excitement, motivation, and enthusiasm for discovery of new electrochemical systems.