Dr Marta Kolanowska from the University of Lodz has won the Grand Prize in the Benedict Polak Prize competition, which since 2015 has been awarded to Polish researchers for “outstanding exploration achievements on earth, in the sea, in the air and in space” and to foreigners for “promoting Polish research topics and cooperation with Polish scientists”. 

Dr Marta Kolanowska was nominated for the Award by the Polish Embassy in Bogota (Colombia). She is employed at the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection of the University of Łódź in the research staff group. 

The researcher is known for her scientific work in the southern part of Colombia, where she works with representatives of an indigenous Colombian tribe. Together with scientists from other research centres around the world, she is working towards the establishment of a nature reserve in the Sibunda Valley, with a research station there under the auspices of the University of Lodz. 

She received an award from the US Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation for her exceptional research on orchids. The biologist from Lodz, who has taken part in more than 20 tropical expeditions, has so far discovered 370 orchid species unknown to science.