Maria Kielar-Turska

A retired full professor and long-time faculty member at the Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, she currently teaches at Ignatianum University in Krakow and Tarnów Academy. Her research focuses on the development of cognitive, linguistic, and communication competencies; her interests include human development across the lifespan, and more recently, development in old age. She considers Stefan Szuman, Jean Piaget, and Lev S. Vygotsky, theorists and empiricists from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as her guides in the study of human development. She is the author of several books (Child's Speech. Word and Text, 1989; Language Across the Lifespan (co-edited with St. Milewski), 2019; Old Age as Psychology Sees It (ed.), 2016; The Power of Mind in Old Age (ed.), 2019; Opportunities for Development in Old Age (ed.), 2020; Threats, Opportunities, Support (ed.), 2024), numerous articles in scientific journals and collective works, chapters on human development in academic textbooks, and thematic entries on development in the 21st Century Pedagogical Encyclopedia. She is a co-founder of the Developmental Psychology Section of the Polish Psychological Association (PTP) and served as its long-time chair (1998 – 2015), subsequently becoming president of the Polish Association for Human Developmental Psychology (2015 – 2019). She is also the Chair of the Psychology Committee of the Krakow Branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal "Developmental Psychology". She has been honored with numerous awards, and for her lifetime achievements, she received the Minister of Science and Higher Education Award in 2012.

‍