“Don’t be afraid to carve out your own path. The world today is changing so fast that… we should believe in ourselves to create opportunities. Trust in the value of what you are able to bring to the table.”

 

MALGORZATA (GOSIA)  SMIESZEK works as a researcher in the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland since 2013. She is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Lapland and a fellow of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) since 2014. She is the alumna of the Jagiellonian University (Poland), University of Vienna (Austria) and the College of Europe in fields of international relations and European studies.In her research she focuses primarily on issues of Arctic governance, the Arctic Council, questions of science-policy interface, science diplomacy and scientific cooperation in the region. She has taken part in a number of projects including the EU-funded “Strategic Environmental Assessment of Development of the Arctic” (2013-2014), “Goals and instruments of Polish Arctic policy” for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014-2015) and “Finland’s Arctic Council chairmanship in the times of increasing uncertainty” for Finland’s Prime Minister Office (2016-2018). Gosia was also the co-organizer of the 4th China-Nordic Arctic Cooperation Symposium and in summer 2016 she participated in the Young Scientists Summer Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) as well as in the science diplomacy course organized by the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). At present she is the co-chair of the IASC action group on communicating Arctic science to policy-makers.

Check out more of her work here and follow Gosia on Twitter @gosiasmieszek!