Associate Professor, Biological Sciences and Geology

Dr. Golebiewska joined Queensbrough in September 2008 and currently is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Geology. Her research is focused on investigating the physical principles driving biological phenomena. She studies the organization and dynamics of lipids in the cell membrane and the aggregation of proteins associated with neurodegeneration. One of her favorite molecules is the polyvalent phospholipid phosphoionositide 4,5 bisphosphate (PIP2), she investigated the behavior of PIP2 in cell membranes, the formation of pools of PIP2 and its diffusion during cells processes such as phagocytosis. Dr. Golebiewska investigated aggregation of alpha and gamma synucleins, proteins that are involved in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases respectively. She performed part of the research at Stony Brook University, working there as Research Assistant Professor, and students involved in the research had the opportunity to visit the lab there and experience state of the art equipment. Dr. Golebiewska performed part of her research as Visiting Professor in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.    

Dr. Golebiewska began her career as a high energy physicist working in the Super Kamiokande and K2K collaborations, both of these experiments investigated particles called neutrinos.  Neutrinos are neutral and react with other particles very rarely. The discovery of neutrino-oscillations was ground-breaking and required the elementary particle theory to go beyond the Standard Model. Dr. Golebiewska, as a member of Super Kamiokande collaboration, was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2016.   

Dr. Golebiewska is an author of 35 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious journals, including Nature Microbiology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Cell Biology, Biophysical Journal, Physical Review Letters, and many others. Thanks to her expertise, she frequently serves as a reviewer for multiple journals.

Dr. Golebiewska is deeply committed to mentor undergraduate students and to provide a meaningful research experience for them. In 2011 Dr. Golebiewska began incorporating undergraduate research into her honors General Biology 2 course. The research is part of the SEA-Phages initiative from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Queensborough students analyze and annotate genomes of bacteriophages. Every semester Dr. Golebiewska and her students author Gene Bank submissions (which are peer-reviewed) and present their findings during regional and national conferences.  225 students completed the course so far and students from the first several semesters are listed as co-authors of a peer-reviewed publication in the journal eLife. Interested students continue their research beyond the class.

Dr. Golebiewska received her Ph.D. from The Stony Brook School of Medicine and her M. Sc. from the Warsaw University. Outside of QCC Dr. Golebiewska explores topics that she is passionate about, such as evolution and astrobiology. She is a Vice President of New York Paleontological Society, she authored several articles published in the societies Newsletter and gave multiple public talks on paleontology and evolution at the society meetings in American Museum of Natural History. She also gave public talks on astrobiology for local astronomy clubs.