The youngest professor in Poland

Prof. Krzysztof Sośnica PhD. Eng. obtained his PhD in physics and astronomy on April 7th, 2014 at the Faculty of Science (Philosophisch-naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät) of the University of Bern (Universität Bern) in Switzerland, based on his dissertation "Determination of Precise Satellite Orbits and Geodetic Parameters Using Satellite Laser Ranging”. He obtained his postdoctoral degree in the field of technical sciences, discipline of Geodesy and Cartography, on January 27th, 2016 at the Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy of the University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Wrocław. He was awarded the title of Professor of Natural Science in September 2020, thus becoming the youngest full professor in Poland.

- Success is now achieved through teamwork. At some stage of your career development, you should stop looking from your own perspective and start investing in others. The real test for independence is the ability to build a research group. At present, professorships are obtained primarily for building a school where excellence in research is pursued, innovative solutions created and whose graduates are a living proof of the research potential of the school they come from, says Prof. Krzysztof Sośnica.

Krzysztof Sośnica focuses his research on the integration of laser distance ranging to satellites (SLR) and GNSS observation, as well as the improvement of methods for determining global geodetic parameters based on multi-GNSS and SLR data. He works on the integration of laser ranging to passive geodetic satellites (LAGEOS-1/2, LARES) and active navigation satellites (GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, GPS) which makes it possible to determine global geodetic parameters, such as: geocentre coordinates, pole coordinates, day-length variations and the scale of the system, with the use of co-location on board the satellites. Currently, he is developing methods of integrating laser ranging to altimetric, remote sensing and gravimetric satellites (Sentinel-3A / 3B, Jason-2/3, GRACE-FO, SWARM-A / B / C). His scientific interests concern also determining orbits of artificial Earth satellites with the highest possible accuracy in order to estimate global geodetic parameters describing the geometry, gravity field and orientation of the Earth figure in outer space, as well as the verification of relativistic effects.

Prof. Sośnica manages a project financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), two OPUS projects of the National Science Centre, research tasks in two European Union projects (Intelligent Development Operational Program – European Plate Observation System EPOS-PL and EPOS-PL+) and supervises Prelude projects. He has also been a contractor in three projects financed by ESA and one funded by the EU (Horizon 2020), Swiss National Science Foundation, the Foundation for Polish Science and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Krzysztof Sośnica is a Governing Board Member of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), chairman of the JSG 0.14 Working Group within the International Association of Geodesy and a member of the Geodesy Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also chairman of the Civil Engineering and Transport Discipline Council at UPWr. Among other things, Krzysztof Sośnica performed an evaluation of scientific projects, which was commissioned by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the Latvian Council of Science (Latvijas Zinātnes Padome). He has made over 100 reviews of articles in journals from the JCR list. He also cooperates with the Combination Centre of the International GNSS Service (IGS) in Australia. Thanks to the Australian-Polish cooperation, experimental products of combined Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS orbits have been created. The professor also collaborates with the German Space Agency (DLR), the French Space Agency (CNES), the University of Bern (AIUB), the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, The University of Texas at Austin and other research centres, which results in numerous joint publications.

- Within the Governing Board of ILRS, we mainly deal with the approval and verification of satellite missions that will be tracked by laser stations. This year, for example, the LARES-2 mission is scheduled to be launched. We also deal with the Galileo system within the ESA project and other projects – says prof. Krzysztof Sośnica.