It has taken me five years to share my story on experiencing academic plagiarism. Right now, the academic world is wrestling with a profound crisis of integrity, from the systemic plagiarism and recent AI-driven report scandals shaking Poland to intellectual property theft globally. It was while attending the 2026 Kavli Prize Ceremony at the Oslo Concert Hall last week, surrounded by pure scientific celebration, that everything clicked into focus, forcing me to realize that I can no longer stay silent. I know that when we stay silent, we become part of the problem and allow these systemic social injustices to continue. I refuse to be a bystander to this corruption any longer.
The Little Mermaid story of having her voice stolen has become a reality in my academic life, and I am not the witch, at least not in this story. Exactly ten years ago, I proudly started my PhD journey, full of hope, foresight, and dedication. Back in 2014, I already knew the direction Poland was heading in terms of their needs to adapt for change; I knew we would urgently need experts on multilingual education, migration, and teacher education. I was guided down this path by a great professor who was also the mother of one of my students at the school where I taught. The Fulbright scholarship recognized that vision and sent me to do a PhD in the US.
My heart has always been in serving as a teacher to those who are struggling the most. Even back as an elementary school student, I was always naturally assigned to support the kids who were having a hard time, which has become my “mission”: supporting children (or at least, not hindering them from truly learning as we often do).
What happened next was a form of „academic rape.” Five years into that journey, an academic „witch” I trusted completely violated my intellectual safety, stealing my voice, some of my words, and my research to build her own career.
Just like a dark sea monster, this person trapped my intellectual song away to sing her own praises. The ultimate, sickening paradox? My research was about voices, narratives, and counter-stories. It was a body of work dedicated to supporting people in getting their voices back, and yet it was stolen by a multi-tentacled monster of a system.
It’s important to say that I didn’t invent these concepts in a vacuum. I was building upon the groundwork of others, meticulously citing and acknowledging the thinkers who came before me, adding my own piece to a larger global dialogue. Science, at its best, a living, breathing avenue of human progress, never a closed book of static facts, but an ongoing story we write together asking questions and challenging status quo.
But the witch didn’t join the dialogue; she simply took the ideas. In the toxic web of Polish academia, her tentacles reach incredibly far. It is a suffocating environment where power protects power, strings are always attached, and favoritism rules. Like a shadowy Kraken, this ecosystem wraps itself around independent minds, choking out truth and literally creating monsters, as one of my mentors used to say.
A well-established lawyer and academic wanted to help me pro bono, but also warned me that the process can become ugly and long. The system is too sticky. Documenting a plagiarism case demands an agonizing amount of time and energy, including building an exhausting paper trail while your soul and your family are being broken by the sheer stress of it all. I spent two months of documenting everything. And I was already burned out and exhausted after the PhD itself.
It took a massive toll on my mental and physical health, taking me years to recover from the trauma. This experience crushed my soul so deeply that I couldn’t even bring myself to publish pictures of my graduation ceremony. What should have been a moment of triumph felt like a funeral for my hard work. I eventually walked away entirely, rejecting offers to become an assistant professor in Poland because I refused to stay in a broken ecosystem which also used to pay a starvation salary.
I fiercely deny being part of such a system. I say an absolute „no” to the shady business of accepting jobs with toxic strings attached. I refuse to serve corrupt professors, to participate in unethical review processes, or to publish solely for hollow points and numbers. I will continue to say no. I know that by doing so, I lose the shortcuts, the systemic benefits, and the hollow rewards that these kinds of scholars get showered with, but I turn my back on it all. Certainly, not all professors are like this, but too many.
I will admit, there have been moments in my past where I found myself unaligned with my true purpose and values, but I have looked deeply into those moments, learned from the experience, and grown stronger because of them. Yet this system pulled me down into a literal black hole, a dark, inescapable void where the gravitational pull of a corrupt system swallows all light and hope.
But a spell cannot last forever. Like the Little Mermaid shattering the glass vial to reclaim her stolen song from the depths, I am breaking my silence, writing my own counter-story, and taking my voice back from the multi-tentacled grip. The coincidence of names in this story is NOT accidental.
Norway saved me. It pulled me from the event horizon of that black hole and gave me psychological safety in a healthy community where my mind, soul, and body were actually valued. I owe an endless debt of gratitude to the wonderful people here who held me close, didn’t give up on me, and lovingly helped stitch the mermaid’s broken soul back together when I had completely lost all hope.
Sitting in the Oslo Concert Hall recently, I listened to Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, beautifully state in his address that true science cannot survive on curiosity alone; it fundamentally demands academic freedom. It requires the freedom to speak out and share your truth without fear of the system dragging you under. Hearing those words in Oslo healed something deep inside my broken soul.
He also talked about how science is not an island of isolated geniuses but an ecosystem of collective intelligence, built on trust, mentorship, and a shared commitment to truth. When that trust is broken by plagiarism, politics, or intellectual theft, we lose something structurally vital – not just for individual careers, but for the health of the entire scientific universe.
I am a scientist and wonderer at heart, a nerd for life, driven since childhood by an insatiable need to ask why and why not. The Kavli events offered a journey across the true spectrum of curiosity, exploring the very small (nanoscience), the most complex (neuroscience), and the very big (astrophysics). Hearing how supermassive black holes at galactic centers drastically dictate the evolution of the Milky Way and the broader cosmic environment gave me an immense reality check. It opened up a broader perspective on the universe, reinforcing what I have known before, i.e. we are entirely shaped by our surroundings. If entire galaxies and the Milky Way are profoundly altered by their environments, how could we expect humans to be any different? Galaxies do not exist in isolation; they merge, collide, and transform under the influence of their cosmic neighborhoods. Our lives are no different as our growth, our trajectory, even our sanity, depend on the health of the environment we inhabit. In a toxic academic environment, we are dragged toward a dark void; in a nurturing one, we are allowed to orbit, shine, and evolve.
While hanging out with humble Nobel Prize winners and having coffee with Kavli Foundation award winners, I realized what true science is actually supposed to be. It isn’t driven by power, titles, or a desperate chase for institutional points. It is a collaborative journey of discovery driven by curiosity and wonder, the desire to elevate humanity, strengthen society, and foster global peace.
During the award ceremony, I was reminded that science is always the beginning of a story, never its final chapter, that our current certainties are temporary; the universe bends, time is relative, and particles behave in ways that constantly surprise us. And therefore, the only honest position is openness, including the freedom to disagree, to question, and to push at the borders of knowledge without fear of retaliation. Academic freedom is not an ornament, but the oxygen that true science breathes.
The contrast between the Oslo Concert Hall and what I left behind is devastating. While Norway honors academic freedom, academia back home has recently been plagued by rampant reports of intellectual theft and the abuse of AI. The deep tragedy is that academic institutions in Poland (not only, of course) have a history of these exact infractions, with professors directly copying or being „inspired” by the work of others, yet nothing is ever really done about it.
The Norwegian Prime Minister also reminded us that we live in an era where facts can be fabricated, titles can be bought, and truth can be buried under PR, censorship, and “cancel culture.” In such a landscape, academic freedom and critical thinking are not luxuries; they are shields against the fake, the shallow, and the performative. They are an antidote to a points-driven hierarchy that measures output but ignores integrity.
The corrupt institution protects its own, leaving structural theft unpunished while feeding a hollow, points-driven hierarchy run like an old-boys’ club. What we need instead is institutional courage including leaders who are willing to stand with independent scholars, protect those who dissent, and keep the borders of knowledge open and transparent for the common good of humanity.
I see a beautiful spark of curiosity today in my young nephew. Whenever he looks at the world, his eyes light up with endless questions, fueled by pure curiosity. Watching him, and listening to the spirit of the Kavli award-winning celebration, reminded me of what we are meant to protect. My nephew and all kids deserve a future where science is about wonder, not survival. I want a world for him where his spark is protected. I refuse to let the monsters control the narrative or keep my voice locked away anymore. Polish science can keep the accolades built on my stolen ideas, if it feeds these scholars’ egos, helps with their superficial titles, and shallow careers. But they will no longer keep my silence. My journey has been a bumpy road, but I am transforming my scars into stars.
Echoing the Norwegian Prime Minister, science, in the end, is a fundamentally human endeavor. It demands creativity, persistence, collaboration, and generosity, that is, qualities that cannot be automated or faked. AI can help us sort data, but it cannot replace the courage it takes to stand up, the empathy required to mentor, or the integrity needed to say “no” to a corrupt system. Real science is the story of real people who devote decades of their lives to understanding things others cannot see.
Today happens to be my grandma’s birthday, who would have turned 99 years old today, and there is no better way to honor her love and legacy than by stepping completely into my truth. Also, on this exact 10th anniversary of starting my PhD, I am happy to say that this coming October, I am officially starting my new chapter as an assistant professor, built on integrity, real wonder, and my own reclaimed voice. My voice is mine again.
Following Joni Mitchell’s line, “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get back to the garden,” I know I am full of scars, but also stardust, and I am finally going back to the garden to learn alongside students whose own stardust and wonder can flourish, if we let them. Together, in a healthier academic universe, we can build a better today and tomorrow.
#AcademicFreedom #Plagiarism #CounterStories #HumanizingResearch #SocialJustice #WomenInScience #AcademicIntegrity #ScienceNerd #ScarsToStars #PhDAnniversary