Education and academic degrees
  • 2021 Title of Professor of Humanities conferred by the President of the Republic of Poland upon a motion of the Central Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles
  • 2016 Habilitation Degree in ethnology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of History
  • 2005 Ph. D. Degree summa cum laude from the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw; Ph. D. dissertation “A Repertoire of Insignia and Gestures of Central Mexican Elites of the Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Periods: the Analysis of Local Conventions”
  • 1999 – 2000 Mesoamerican studies in Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn
  • 1995 – 2000 Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities (College MISH, University of Warsaw), individual program of studies realized in archaeology, history, art history and Ibero-American studies. June 2000 M.A. Degree in Archaeology (thesis “The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Analysis of Actual Data”); M.A. Diploma with Distinction by the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw

Academic appointments
  • 2018 – present Associate professor, director of the Center for Research and Practice in Cultural Continuity, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw
  • 2005 – 2018 Associate professor, director of the Laboratory “Encounters between the Old and New Worlds” in the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw, full-time (since 2012: Faculty of “Artes Liberales”)
  • 2012 – 2016 Vice-Dean of the Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw
  • 2001 – 2005 Employee, Centre for Studies of the Classical Tradition, University of Warsaw, half-time
  • 2000 – 2005 Employee, Andean Archaeological Mission, the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, half-time

Projects, grants and fellowships
  • 2020 Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council Multilingual worlds – neglected histories. Uncovering their emergence, continuity and loss in past and present societies (MULTILING-HIST 101002696; 2021-2026)
  • 2018 Center for Latin American Studies, University of Utah, Visiting Scholar (07.2018 - 1 month)
  • 2018 Grant of the National Science Centre (Opus 15) for the research project Indigenous trauma, acculturation and agency. The Nahua world from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century (2019-2021)
  • 2017 Language as a cure: linguistic vitality as a tool for psychological well-being, health and economic sustainability, TEAM Programme, Foundation for Polish Science
  • 2016, 2017 MacMillan Center, Yale University, Visiting Fellow (07.2016 & 07.2017 – 2 months)
  • 2015 Grant of the European Commission, Twinning Program, Horizon 2020, for the project Engaged humanities in Europe: Capacity building for participatory research in linguistic-cultural heritage
  • 2013 Grant and fellowship “Ideas for Poland”, Foundation for Polish Science
  • 2012 Starting Grant of the European Research Council Europe and America in Contact: a Multidisciplinary Study of Cross-cultural Transfer in the New World Across Time (CULTURECONTACT 312795; 12.2012-12.2017)
  • 2012 Grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) within the National Program for the Development of the Humanities for the team project “Disappearing Languages. Integral Models of Research and Revitalization” (12.2012-12.2015)
  • 2011 Grant of the National Science Centre (Opus 1) for the research project Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past. Challenges and adaptation strategies of the native nobility of New Spain in comparative perspective, sixteenth through nineteenth centuries (2011-2014)
  • 2011 John Carter Brown Library fellowship (Brown University, Providence, RI) for the research project “Language Encounters between the Old and New Worlds. Nahuatl as the medium of cross-cultural transfers in New Spain” (08-09.2011)
  • 2010 Fellowship of the Ministry of Science (Poland) for Outstanding Young Scholars (09.2010-09.2013)
  • 2010 University of Oregon, Eugene, fellowship of the Modern University Program, the Social Fund of the European Union, for a teaching internship (09.2010 – 3 weeks)
  • 2010 Grant of the Foundation for Polish Science within the Focus Program for the research project Language Encounters between the Old and New Worlds (05.2010-05.2013, prolonged till 2015; director of the project, three additional team members); additional subsidy for the renovation and equipping office/research/meeting space of the team
  • 2008 Post-doctoral fellowship from Harvard University at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C., for the research project The concept of »Chichimec« in native identity and perception, pre-Hispanic and colonial Central Mexico (06-08.2008)
  • 2008 Individual grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for the research project Concepts of “barbarian” and the “noble savage” in pre-Hispanic and early colonial Mexico. The “Chichimecs” in native identity and perception (director of the project)
  • 2005 Grant of the Ministry of Science for book publication Turquoise Diadems and Staffs of Office. Elite Costume and Insignia of Power in Aztec and Early Colonial Mexico
  • 2002 Research grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for the Ph. D. project A Repertoire of Insignia and Gestures of Central Mexican Elites of the Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Periods: the Analysis of Local Conventions
  • 2001 Research grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for the research project Settlement of Classic Maya Culture in Nakum (Petén, Guatemala). Architecture, settlement patterns, agricultural system and demography (Polish Committee for Scientific Research; director of the project)
  • 2001 Summer fellowship from Harvard University at the Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collection, Washington D.C, for the research project A Repertoire of Insignia and Gestures of Central Mexican Elites of the Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Periods: the Analysis of Local Conventions (06.-08.)

Distinctions & awards
  • Falling Walls Award for "breaking the walls between academy and local communities in favour of linguistic diversity" (2020)
  • Council Member of the National Science Center, Poland (2018 – present)
  • Title of the Ambassador of Science (Ambasador Nauki), Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2014
  • Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta awarded by the President of Poland (04.06.2013)
  • Burgen Scholarship Award of the Academia Europea, 2013
  • Klio Award for the book "Meksyk przed konkwistą" ("Mexico before the Conquest") 2010

Recent plenary, keynote and invited lectures
  • Keynote lecture, Challenging ‘linguistic market’ forces. Heritage language use and speakers’ well-being, international conference Conventional and unconventional ways of transmitting and revitalizing minoritized languages in Europe and Beyond, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 08.09.2021
  • Plenary lecture, Local languages in a globalizing and pandemized world: challenges, opportunities and new understandings, European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association 15th Conference, 25.03.2021
  • Keynote speaker, The power of the past, the need for a future: decolonization and Indigenous agency, international conference Future today/ yesterday / tomorrow. Visions of future(s) in the Americas, Universität Bonn, Bonn, 14.06.2019
  • Invited symposium lecture, Beyond Physicality: Dress, Agency and Social Becoming in the Nahua World, Dress Codes. Regalia and Attire in Ancient Mesoamerica. The Mesoamerica Meetings, University of Texas in Austin, Austin 18.01.2019
  • Panel speaker „European Research Council – jak rozwijać polską doskonałość naukową?”; conference „20 lat Polski w Programach Ramowych Badań i Innowacji UE. Horyzont 2020 – nowe otwarcie”, Krajowy Punkt Kontaktowy Programów Badawczych UE, Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego, Warsaw 07.06.2018
  • Invited speaker Exploring indigenous agency in conditions of cultural trauma. Tlaxcala 1543/ Quenin nictehtemoa macehualtlachihualizhuelitiliztli ixpan huei temauhtiliztli. Tlaxcallan ipan 1543 (conference paper presented in modern Nahuatl with projected English translation), Nahuatl Conference, University of California, Los Angeles 05.05.2018
  • Invited panel speaker , panel: Research excellence National Congress of Science Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Cracow 20.09.2017
  • Invited speaker at the Plenary session: Young SSH Scientists: experiences and challenges, Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities Bratislava 2016 Social Sciences and Humanities: A new Agenda for Europe’s Challenges, within the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU, 16.11.2016, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Keynote lecture Bridging Western and Indigenous Research: New Strategies for the Revitalization of Nahuatl (with John Sullivan); international conference Indigenous Languages and Cultures: Then and Now, University of Sheffield, Sheffield UK 13.09.2016
  • Inaugural lecture of the Academic Year 2015/2016 at the University of Warsaw: Endangered Languages. Challenges of Engaged Science, 01.10.2015
  • Plenary lecture Rebuilding the Tower of Babel. Challenges of the contemporary humanities at Polish Scientific Networks international conference Warsaw, organized by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Young Scientists’ Academy and the Foundation for Polish Science, 19.06.2015

Participation in expert groups
  • Council Member of the National Science Center, appointment by the Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland (12.2018 – present)
  • Interdisciplinary Committee for the Mobility Plus Program, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, member (2011 – present)
  • Committee of the National Program for the Development of the Humanities, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2013-2014, 2018, panel member
  • National Science Center, member of the Panel of Humanities and Social Sciences (2016-2017)
  • Poznań Linguistic Meetings, reviewer (2015-2017)

Recent dissemination publications and activities
Participation in the preparation and production of dissemination movies on the YouTube channel