A 29-year-old medic from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków who heads a world-leading cardiac morphology team has become Poland’s youngest ever full professor.
“I guess this is the moment that every academic waits for,” wrote Mateusz Hołda of the university’s Medical College in a social media post. “Nine years of intensive scientific work have resulted in my being awarded the title of professor of medicine. At the age of 29 I have become the youngest professor in Polish history.”
“On the path to this success there were more failures than successes – it was hard (sometimes very hard), but it was definitely worth it. This is not the end of my academic path, but just the beginning.”
Despite Hołda’s modesty, this is not the first time his academic successes have caught the eye. He completed his academic doctorate in medicine in 2017 before earning his master’s degree in medicine – the first ever such case, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
He also became the youngest ever recipient of an advanced habilitation degree in 2020. In 2013, at the age of just 21, he co-founded HEART – Heart Embryology and Anatomy Research Team – a research group focusing on understanding the architecture of the human heart, which he continues to head.
Hołda has authored or co-authored almost 100 publications in leading academic journals. In 2019 he was one of three young Poles to feature on Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” list for Europe, as well as being named Emerging Europe’s Young Influencer of the Year.
“I must admit, I still feel a certain thrill,” Hołda told TVN24 after hearing that he had been awarded the professorship, adding that the procedure had taken almost a year since the application was sent on his 29th birthday.
“One of my biggest achievements is creating the HEART team, which deals in cardiac morphology. I can say that we are one of the world leaders in the field.”
Another success he mentioned has been the team’s research on the interatrial septum in the heart, which has demonstrated that the presence of a pouch in the septum – something that half the people in the world have – can cause an ischemic stroke.
Hołda becomes the first person to be made a professor in Poland in his twenties. The previous youngest record holder was 35-year-old Krzysztof Sośnica, a researcher specialising in satellite geodesy and astrodynamics from Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences.
In the Polish academic system, a doctorate is followed by an advanced degree known as a habilitation. Universities can then award associate professorships. A full professorship can only be conferred by the president of Poland after approval by an academic excellence board.
Note: This article has been updated to clarify that it refers to professors in the Polish education system. We are grateful to Peter Sawko, who wrote to tell us about his father Felicjan Sawko, who was born in Poland but exiled to Siberia in the Second World War before eventually being resettled in the United Kingdom, and was also just 29 when he became a professor of civil engineering at the University of Liverpool in 1967.
Main image credit: Wikimedia (under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
