Prof. Kuźniak is an experimental physicist, leader of the SiPM Systems for Astroparticle and Medical Physics Group at Astrocent, and member of DEAP-3600, DarkSide and DRD2 collaborations.
He received a Master’s degree in physics from Jagiellonian University in 2004. His PhD work was supported jointly by Jagiellonian University and Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI in Villigen, Switzerland) and was based on research undertaken at PSI and Institut Laue-Langevin (Grenoble, France), leading to a doctoral degree from Jagiellonian University in 2008. For both of his degrees he worked on cold and ultracold neutron experiments (nTRV/BRAND, nEDM@PSI) motivated by the baryon asymmetry puzzle and searching for the fundamental symmetry breaking.
He was then employed as a Postdoctoral Fellow and, from 2013, as a Research Associate at Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada), and continued his Research Associate post at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada), focusing on direct search for Dark Matter with a single phase liquid argon detector, DEAP-3600, located 2 km underground at SNOLAB (Sudbury, Canada). His analysis leadership guided the effort of the collaboration starting from early simulation studies, through development of the full simulation and analysis package, analysis of the commissioning data, to publication of the first results from DEAP-3600 in 2017. He was also in charge of several key R&D items and detector subsystems. In 2018 he started as a Research Scientist in charge of the science program of the cryogenic facility for R&D on noble liquid detectors at Carleton. In July 2019 he returned to Poland as an Assistant Professor (adiunkt) to start and lead a research group at Astrocent. Following his habilitation in 2021 he was promoted to Associate Professor.
In 2020 he started the DarkWave project, supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, jointly with APC/CNRS, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Istituto Naionale di Fisica Nucleare and Technical University of Munich.
Prof. Kuźniak is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the conference series LIDINE: LIght Detection In Noble Elements, and host of LIDINE 2022. He played a leadership role in the DEAP collaboration, including: Analysis and Simulation Coordinator (2009-2019), Software Manager, Chair of the Scientific Board, Chair of the Publication Committee, Manager of Light Collection and Wavelength Shifter subsystems in DEAP-3600.He has co-authored over 70 articles published in high impact journals and presented his work at numerous conferences, including several high-profile invited and plenary talks.
In late 2023 he has been nominated by the AstroParticle Physics European Consortium (APPEC) General Assembly as a new member of the of the APPEC Scientific Advisory Committee.
role: Head Researcher
The overarching goal of the project is to develop breakthrough, highly scalable and multi-channel detection systems for scientific and commercial applications. The technologies being developed are crucial for research into the biggest questions of modern physics (including dark matter, neutrinos and gravitational waves), while also opening up new opportunities in areas such as medicine, security, environmental and climate monitoring, renewable energy, and seismology (including early-warning systems).
Granted by Foundation for Polish Science
role: Project director
OPUS-24 grant “Search for dark matter with liquid argon detectors”, 2 151 300 PLN
Granted by National Science Centre
role: Project director
Horizon 2020 Twinning grant “DarkWave: Novel technologies for dark matter search and frontier astroparticle physics experiments”, 879 812 EUR
Granted by European Commission
role: Principal investigator
Miniatura-3 grant “Development of a new GEM detector concept for dark matter searches and neutrino experiments”, 47 850 PLN
Granted by National Science Centre (NCN)
role: Principal investigator
Polonium 2020 grant “Optimization of silicon photomultiplier response for dark matter search with liquid argon”, 24 850 PLN
Granted by National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA)