Ryszard Laskowski

Ryszard Laskowski, born in Poland on 9th September 1959, has completed his studies in biology in 1984 at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He is the professor at the Jagiellonian University and Head of the Ecotoxicology and Stress Ecology Research Group at the Institute of Environmental Sciences. In 2002-2008 he was a deputy director of the Institute. He worked also at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, the University of Reading, UK, and the Oregon State University, USA. He is the co-author/editor of six books, including four major textbooks: "Mixture Toxicity: Linking Approaches from Ecological and Human Toxicology" by CRC Press (co-edited with C.A.M. van Gestel, M. Jonker, J. Kammenga, and C. Svendsen); "Litter decomposition: a guide to carbon and nutrient turnover" by Elsevier (co-authored with B. Berg); "Demography in Ecotoxicology" by John Wiley and Sons (co-edited with J. Kammenga); "Ecotoxicology: from a cell to an ecosystem" by PWRiL (in Polish, co-authored with P. Migula). He authored and co-authored over 80 research, review and popular articles.

Prof. Laskowski specializes in terrestrial ecotoxicology, population ecology and evolutionary biology. He has lead a number of research projects on effects of toxic chemicals on biodiversity of terrestrial invertebrates, microbial processes, biogeochemistry and population dynamics of various species. He teaches, or taught before, general ecology, ecotoxicology, soil ecology, terrestrial ecology, population ecology, tropical ecology, global ecological problems and nature photography.

In his free time, he plays badminton and travels. Nature and travel photography has always been his hobby; he works as a freelance photographer, cooperating with some major photographic agencies, including Dreamstime and Alamy.