Awards Gala for the President of Olsztyn’s Statuettes of St. Jacob was held on 27 January at the Auditorium in Olsztyn. The committee, chaired by Piotr Grzymowicz, awarded distinctions in six categories for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022. Two statuettes in the Science category went to scientists from our Institute – Prof. Ryszard Amarowicz and Prof. Henryk Zieliński.
The St. Jacob Statuettes honour outstanding people living and working in the capital of Warmia and Mazury who are particularly involved in the life of the city, create its scientific, cultural and economic achievements, and thus shape the image of Olsztyn.
Prof. Ryszard Amarowicz – Statuette of St. Jacob 2020
In 1980, while a graduate of the Faculty of Food Technology at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, he joined the Faculty of Food Technology at the Agricultural and Technical Academy in Olsztyn. He studied food contamination with pesticides and heavy metals. He was awarded for his teaching activities by the Minister of Science and Higher Education and the Rector of ART. In 1988 he started working at the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research, Polish Academy of Sciences. He currently heads the Department of Chemical and Physical Properties of Food, where he investigates the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties of biologically active compounds in food.
Prof. Amarowicz is the highest ranked scientist from Poland in the field of food science in a ranking published by Stanford University, Elsevier Publishing and SciTech Strategies. More than 380 publications authored by Prof. Amarowicz are recorded in world science databases, cited more than 11,000 times, which gives him a Hirsch index of 57 (according to the Scopus database).
The Professor’s high international position is confirmed by his former and current membership in several editorial boards of world-class scientific journals. He was repeatedly awarded the title of outstanding reviewer of scientific papers, and the Minister of Science and Higher Education entrusted him with the function of chairman of the team evaluating scientific journals in the area of food technology and nutrition. For his remarkable scientific achievements, he was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit by the President of the Republic of Poland and the „Best of the Best” Award by the Marshal of the Warmia and Mazury Region.
Prof. Henryk Zieliński – Statuette of St. Jacob 2022
His relationship with Olsztyn goes back to 1985. As a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Astronomy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, majoring in chemistry, he started working at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Agricultural and Technical Academy in Olsztyn. For his research activity at ART, he was awarded the Bronze Cross of Merit and three times awarded by the Rector of ART. In 1996 he started working at the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. For many years, he headed the Department of the Chemistry and Biodynamics of Food. In 2010-2020, he was the editor-in-chief of the scientific quarterly Polish Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences. In 2023, he took the position of the Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs at the Institute’s Division of Food Sciences.
Prof. Zieliński’s research concerns biologically active compounds in plant raw materials, mainly in cereals, and their functional properties. There are almost 190 publications by Prof. Zieliński recorded in world science databases, cited over 4600 times, which gives him a Hirsch index of 35 (according to the Scopus database). These achievements placed Prof. Zieliński on the list of the Top 2% of the best scientists in the world. He has been recognised and awarded many times for his scientific activities, i.a. by the American Chemical Society and the President of the Republic of Poland, from whom he received the Golden Cross of Merit. In 2022, the team under his direction received the Scientific Award of the Marshal of the Wamia and Mazury Region for research entitled „Buckwheat products of potential importance in the prevention of civilization diseases – a new brand of Warmia and Mazury”. In recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements, in the same year he was awarded the title „Honorary Citizen of the Town of Jabłonowo Pomorskie” by the authorities of his hometown.
These are two more St. Jacob’s Statuettes to add to the Institute’s distinctions, yet the first ones in the ‘Science’ category. So far, the Institute has been honoured with two distinctions in the category of 'Special merits for Olsztyn’, awarded to Prof. Zenon Zduńczyk (2018) and in recognition of the European Researchers’ Nights organised by the Institute between 2014 and 2017.
