Professor dr hab. Maria Lisiewska 1 of 3Published by Polish Botanical Society Acta Mycologica SCIENTISTS Professor dr hab. Maria Lisiewska Małgorzata Stasińska* Department of Botany and Nature Conservation, Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Environmental Testing Laboratory, University of Szczecin, Felczaka 3c, 71-412 Szczecin, Poland * Email: stasinsk@univ.szczecin.pl Abstract The article presents the biography and scientific achievements of Professor Maria Lisiewska. She earned master’s degree and Ph.D. in natural sciences from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. After earning her doctoral degree, she stayed at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and conducted her thrilling research on mycology and taught until now. Prof. Maria Lisiewska is an author of many books, articles, and other scholarly reports. Keywords mycology; mycocoenology; macromycetes; Poznań This issue of Acta Mycologica is dedicated to Professor Maria Lisiewska and Professor Anna Bujakiewicz on the occasion of their 80th and 75th birthday, respectively. Professor Maria Lisiewska’s career has been inex- tricably linked with Poznań, the town of her birth. She studied biology at the Faculty of Botany and Earth Sciences of Adam Mickiewicz University be- tween 1952 and 1957. Her thesis, “Systemy korze- niowe roślin grądowych a podłoże [Root systems of Galio-Carpinetum plants in dependence on the substratum],” was supervised by Professor Zygmunt Czubiński. In 1964, she was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences from Adam Mickiewicz University upon submission of her dissertation, “Udział grzy- bów wyższych w grądach Wielkopolski [Higher fungi of the Querco-Carpinetum of the Wielkopol- ska province]” [1], written under the direction of Professor Zygmunt Czubiński and research tuition of Professor Andrzej Nespiak. The result of her postdoctoral research work (habilitation) was entitled “Grzyby wyższe lasów bukowych we wschodniej części zasięgu buka w Europie [Macromyce- tes of beech forests within the eastern part of the Fagus area in Europe]” [2]. Maria Lisiewska received a professorial nomination award for extraordinary professorship in 1985 and the position of full academic professor in 1993. Her first teaching and research job was also at Adam Mickiewicz University, where, while still a student, she was employed as a student assistant in the Department of Plant Systematics and Geog- raphy (at present the Department of Plant Ecology and Environment Conservation), chaired by Professor Czubiński, on December 1, 1955. Thanks to the kindness of Professor Czubiński, Maria Lisiewska developed her mycological passion and interest in fungi by attending mycological and phytopatho- logical seminars under the guidance of Professor Karol Mańka and Professor Karol Zaleski at the Higher School of Agriculture. She was subsequently employed as a ju- nior lecturer (from 1957), senior lecturer (from 1964), associate professor (docent, DOI: 10.5586/am.1061 Publication history Received: 2015-06-27 Accepted: 2015-07-31 Published: 2015-08-05 Handling editor Maria Rudawska, Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland Funding This work did not involve any funding. Competing interests No competing interests have been declared. Copyright notice © The Author(s) 2015. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits redistribution, commercial and non- commercial, provided that the article is properly cited. Citation Stasińska M. Professor dr hab. Maria Lisiewska. Acta Mycol. 2015;50(1):1061. http://dx.doi. org/10.5586/am.1061 Digital signature This PDF has been certified using digital signature with a trusted timestamp to assure its origin and integrity. A verification trust dialog appears on the PDF document when it is opened in a compatible PDF reader. Certificate properties provide further details such as certification time and a signing reason in case any alterations made to the final content. If the certificate is missing or invalid it is recommended to verify the article on the journal website. mailto:stasinsk%40univ.szczecin.pl?subject=Professor%20dr%20hab.%20Maria%20Lisiewska http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1061 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1061 http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1061 2 of 3© The Author(s) 2015 Published by Polish Botanical Society Acta Mycol 50(1):1061 Stasińska / Professor dr hab. Maria Lisiewska from 1974), extraordinary professor (from 1985), and full professor (ordinary, from 1993) until her retirement in 2004. In July 2008, Maria Lisiewska was awarded the status of professor-emeritus (Profesor-Senior) at her alma mater. Maria Lisiewska’s research output comprises 97 original studies, both research pa- pers and monographs, published in academic journals in Poland and abroad. She is the author of a monograph study of the genus Mycena, based on specimens from the entire area of Poland and illustrated with color drawings from nature of Mycena made by Professor Maria Lisiewska. The study was published as the seventeenth volume of Flora Polska: Grzyby (Mycota) [The Flora of Poland: Fungi (Mycota)], a publica- tion series by the Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences. Together with Ma- rian Szmid, from the Provincial Sanitary and Epidemiological Station (SANEPID) in Poznań, Lisiewska wrote the popular book Przewodnik grzyboznawczy [Guide to Mushrooms], which has now had its fifth edition. She is also the coauthor of the mycology textbook Mikologia: przewodnik do ćwiczeń terenowych i laboratoryjnych [Guide for field and laboratory exercises] [3]. Professor Maria Lisiewska’s interests lie mostly in the mycocoenology and ecology of macromycetes. She has conducted research in a variety of forest communities: oak- hornbeam forests, beech forests, acidophilous oak forests, and coniferous forests. She is interested in the species diversity of fungi in relation to different plant communities. The region of her native Wielkopolska as well the Western Bieszczady Mountains, Świętokrzystkie Mountains, Masurian Lakeland, and Pomerania are at the center of her investigations. Professor Lisiewska has taken part in numerous research programs, such as the interdisciplinary CRYPTO project (“Cryptogamous plants in the forest communities of Białowieża National Park”) coordinated by Professor Janusz B Faliński, the inter- national project on “Mycological monitoring in European oak forests” coordinated by Professor Maria Ławrynowicz, and complex mycocoenological investigations in Ger- many, Denmark, and many countries of the former Yugoslavia. She has presented the results of her research work at European and international mycological congresses, from the Fourth Congress of European Mycologists in Warsaw (Poland) in 1966 to the Fourteenth Congress of European Mycologists in Katsiveli (Crimea, Ukraine) in 2003, as well as many conferences in Poland. Since 1982, Professor Maria Lisiewska has been the science editor of the research journal Badania Fizjograficzne, Seria B: Botanika [Physiographic Studies, Series B: Botany], published by the Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk [Poznań Soci- ety of Friends of Sciences], until 2010 Badania Fizjograficzne nad Polską Zachodnią, Seria B [Physiographic Studies of Western Poland, Series B]. She has also, since 1995, been a member of the editorial board of the international journal Acta Mycologica. Professor Lisiewska’s professional affiliations include membership to the Mycological Section of the Polish Society of Hygiene (a member since 1965 and a member of the executive board), the Polish Botanical Society, and the Polish Mycological Society, of which she is a founding member. Professor Maria Lisiewska has acted as director of extramural studies in biology (1978–1985) and vice dean of the Faculty of Biology (1985–1987). She was a visiting professor at the University of Bologna in June 1992. Professor Lisiewska worked as an academic teacher at the Faculty of Biology at Adam Mickiewicz University until 2004, although she continued delivering lectures until 2013. She has supervised as many as nineteen undergraduate dissertations, sixty master’s theses, and two doctoral theses (Stefan Friedrich and Grzegorz Fiedorowicz). She has acted as a reviewer–examiner of seven applications for the academic title of professor and eight postdoctoral theses (habilitation). For over fifty years, Maria Lisiewska has conducted highly popular and equally respected lectures and field seminars at annual courses devoted to fungi organized by the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Inspectorate in Poznań. As an outstand- ing academic teacher and educator, Professor Maria Lisiewska has received numerous awards and distinctions, such as individual prizes from the Ministers of Education, Higher Education and Technology (1975) and National Education (1988), a joint prize from the Minister of Nature Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry (1999), and a Gold Medal celebrating the Hundredth Anniversary of the Polish Society of Hygiene (1998). 3 of 3© The Author(s) 2015 Published by Polish Botanical Society Acta Mycol 50(1):1061 Stasińska / Professor dr hab. Maria Lisiewska References 1. Lisiewska M. Higher fungi of the Querco-Carpinetum of Wielkopolska province. Acta Mycol. 1965;1(1):169–271. http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1965.012 2. Lisiewska M. Macromycetes of beech forests within the eastern part of the Fagus area in Europe. Acta Mycol. 1974;10(1)3–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1974.001 3. Bujakiewicz A, Lisiewska M, Nita J. Mikologia: przewodnik do ćwiczeń terenowych i labo- ratoryjnych. Poznań: Bogucki Wyd. Nauk.; 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1965.012 http://dx.doi.org/10.5586/am.1974.001 Abstract References 2015-08-02T15:16:38+0100 Piotr Otręba