Dorota helps the AEC&M industries DESIGN and BUILD with sustainability in mind and SOLVE the net zero challenges they face. She supports VinZero’s customers in growing their internal proficiency within the sustainability space to meet the expectations of the decarbonising market. She works across the technical and professional services team of VinZero A2K, ensuring that the products address the needs of the industry, are utilised to the highest level of their capabilities and enable the transition of the Built Environment sector to carbon neutrality. Her goal is to expand VinZero's offering from ‘software as a service’ to ‘software as an enabler for decarbonisation’.

Dorota is a Registered Consultant for carbon neutral certification of organisations, precincts, and events. She has assisted various companies in establishing boundaries of their emissions footprint (scopes 1, 2 & 3), developing carbon inventory, and reaching net zero. She has developed emissions reduction strategies for significant Australian and global emitters in alignment with Climate Active requirements, SBTi guidelines and GHG Protocol methodology. She worked across many sectors of the economy, including transport, infrastructure, government, food chain, entertainment, and finance.

Dorota provides administrative support to a network of Polish entrepreneurs in Australia, and Australian entrepreneurs entering the Polish market. She collaborates closely with the Polish Investment and Trade Agency in Sydney, and the Australian Trade and Investment Commission in Warsaw on improving business exchange between the two countries.

She also organises various types of business conferences for the network, professional networking events, as well as seminars with subject matter experts in the field of international trade, taxation, and cultural differences between the two countries in the business context.

Dorota provided strategic oversight and assistance to the core EnergyLink Services team. She oversaw assurance and consulting engagements to a full suite of corporations across voluntary and mandatory schemes such as the NSW Energy Savings Scheme, Victorian Energy Upgrades Program, Climate Active, National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, and the Safeguard Mechanism.

Dorota worked closely with industry partners of RACE for 2030 on reducing their environmental footprint and developing capacity within their business structures to accelerate their transition to net zero. She looked at rapid career development pathways for existing and emerging decarbonisation specialists in Australia, focused on growing their expertise in emissions reduction strategies, renewable energy sourcing and energy productivity solutions.

Additionally, Dorota managed the Carbon Manager Pilot Program - a flagship capacity building initiative of RACE. The pilot supported large emitters in onboarding emissions reduction specialists and enabling innovation in the energy space.

Dorota was responsible for aligning the University's curriculum with the current industry trends and needs, through the development of new practical classes. Her aim was to encourage independent thinking, teamwork, and practical experience among engineering students. She worked on various energy-related subjects run by the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Dorota was also responsible for preparing safety documentation and implementing new safety measures in the University's laboratories. Her main task was to assess and limit risks in all laboratory operations, and plan strategies to mitigate risks of future activities.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, Dorota set up and supervised a virtual campus of the Chemical Engineering Department. She developed tools encouraging students’ engagement in e-learning and performed numerous training sessions on virtual teaching for the University's staff.

Alongside her research work, Dorota took on the position of a Teaching Associate at Monash University. In this role, she has led classes on superconductors, magnetic fields, crystallography, and biofuels.

Dorota became highly skilled in the use of data analysis and visualisation software (e.g. Matlab, Vesta). She learned how to simplify complex issues while maintaining the massive theoretical content behind them. She was planning and performing classes, assessing class assignments, students' performance and their progress throughout the course. She learned how to motivate and engage students in brainstorming and discussion.

Dorota also gave multiple guest lectures to Monash students on the future of the solar industry, as well as technological progress and scientific discoveries in this field.

The Polish Festival @ Federation Square is Australia's largest Polish not-for-profit community event, bringing together an estimated number of 50 thousand visitors every year. Such mass gatherings leave an enormous environmental footprint on the city's ecosystem. The negative impacts include, among others, high consumption of electricity and fuels (transport and cooking), large waste generation and water consumption. Decarbonising large events is a challenging task, as emissions generated by external contractors participating in the festival (such as food vendors, or artists) and the festival's guests are extremely difficult to control, reduce, or even account for.

In this role, Dorota managed relations with key stakeholders of the festival (sponsors, patrons, and partners) and developed a Sustainability Strategy for the 16th edition of the festival. She delivered an Emissions Reduction and Offsetting Plan (scopes 1, 2 & 3) compliant with the GHG Protocol and SBTi, and a Sustainability Report in alignment with GRI standards. She developed educational materials for contractors and visitors to jointly reduce the festival’s emissions (among others, a campaign on the use of public transportation, “Offset your emissions” QR codes in collaboration with Our-Trace.com, low-carbon food options, reduction of single-use plastic and paper promotional materials). Tools and engagement strategies developed for the 16th edition of the festival can be used by the Organising Committee in all future editions of the festival.

Dorota's passion for fighting climate change and advocating for a sustainable future was recognised in the global arena. In December 2018 she received an invitation from the Polish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to join the prestigious 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) at UNFCCC.

During the conference, she learned about multiple challenges of the global policy-making process. She recognised different incentives and priorities of the interested Parties and similarities between them. She learned about the internal political situation of different Parties and how challenging it is to navigate through it in the global arena. She also noticed major communication barriers between climate scientists and policymakers, which lead to a limited flow of information.

During the conference, Dorota met brilliant and passionate people from all over the world who drive the change toward a sustainable future. She spoke to representatives of different developing countries and learned about the additional obstacles and dangers that they are facing. She participated in multiple formal meetings with the representatives of the Australian Government bodies such as DFAT, Department of the Environment and Energy (currently the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment) and Australian Negotiators to COP24, as well as with their Polish counterparts.

The participation in COP24 inspired Dorota to keep broadening her interests and expertise. She realised that decarbonising the energy sector should go together with strong and immediate action on all other Sustainable Development Goals.

Dorota improved energy efficiency on 10+ Victorian dairy farms and assisted farmers with procurement of on-site green energy generation assets. She developed easy-to-use tools enabling 50+ farmers to identify sources of energy loss, see possible investment options appropriate to their situation and estimate ROI.

Rapid decarbonisation of industries and businesses is crucial to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Such change in Australia is often driven by a bottom-up approach, with more and more companies pledging their targets towards Sustainable Development Goals. With this in mind, Dorota decided to undertake a Pg.Cert. in Business Sustainability Management at the University of Cambridge. She believes that the additional skills which she gained during this course, will help her to facilitate this transition.

The course provided Dorota with practical knowledge of the social, economic and environmental pressures on private and public sectors, in a local and global context. She learned that sustainability is an integral part of ensuring that companies can continue to operate on the planet with limited resources and deliver benefits to both shareholders and society. Consequently, integrating sustainability across an organisation's entire value chain is critical to secure long-term value creation.

During the course, Dorota collaborated with a global network of sustainability champions. She learned how to effectively argue the business case for sustainability, overcome barriers and seize the opportunities associated with creating a sustainable business. She learned about policy instruments, international agreements, and the role of business and civil society in shaping a zero-carbon economy. She explored different business models and processes for sourcing, producing, and consuming responsibly.

Throughout the course, Dorota completed a number of assignments that allowed her to practice how to effectively communicate sustainability strategies and goals to internal and external stakeholders. She learned how to articulate the importance of sustainability in business and drive social responsibility across the organisation's value chain.

In 2016, fascinated by the rapid progress of perovskite solar cells, Dorota decided to join Prof. Udo Bach's Research Group at Monash University to continue her education in the field of photovoltaics. Her research was sponsored by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the University itself.

During her PhD, Dorota worked on flexible solar devices, within the CSIRO Flexible Electronics Group. She became an expert in quasi-interdigitated back contact perovskite solar cells - an emerging type of solar panel, with both electrodes placed at the back of the device. She developed a pilot plant used for in-situ measurements of the perovskite layer during various vapour treatment processes. The plant later contributed to the achievements of other members of the research group. She was also a "go-to person" when it comes to photoluminescence and photocurrent mapping, refractive index matching, as well as antireflective and protective coatings.

Dorota has mastered the use of various device fabrication techniques (e.g. photolithography, e-beam evaporation, atomic layer deposition) and characterisation (e.g. SEM, PESA). She has also gained extensive experience working in the clean room facilities of Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication.

Her work was recognised by the scientific community and resulted in the publication of three research papers:

Solution-processed antireflective coating for back-contact perovskite solar cells, D.M. Bacal, et al., Optics Express 28 (9), 12650-12660,

Fabrication of back-contact electrodes using modified natural lithography, A.N. Jumabekov, J.A. Lloyd, D.M. Bacal, U. Bach, A.S.R. Chesman, ACS Applied Energy Materials 1 (3), 1077-1082,

Back-contact perovskite solar cells with honeycomb-like charge collecting electrodes, Q. Hou, D. Bacal, A.N. Jumabekov, W. Li, Z. Wang, X. Lin, S.H. Ng, B. Tan, A.S.R. Chesman, U. Bach, Nano energy 50, 710-716.

During her PhD, Dorota also developed extremely important management skills: project planning and budgeting, time management and stakeholder engagement. She polished her English language to a proficient level and presented her work on multiple occasions in professional settings.

Dorota is focused on the big picture of the energy transition. She recognises the importance of following industry trends and needs. Therefore, during her PhD and after she participated in many seminars and industry conferences, e.g.:

All-Energy Australia Conference in Melbourne (2019, 2018 and 2017), organised by Reed Exhibitions Australia,

FT Commodities Tokyo Summit in Tokyo (2019) organised by Financial Times,

24th Conference of the Parties to United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice (2018), organised by the United Nations,

Polish & Australian Technology and Innovation in Resource and Energy Conference in Sydney (2018), organised by Austrade and Polish Trade Agency,

Australian Cleantech Competition in Sydney (2016, 2017, 2018), organised by the Australian Cleantech.

For the first time in her career, Dorota left behind the safe and well-known world of silicon solar cells and started to research the emerging area of thin-film technologies.

Under the supervision of Prof Ihor Virt and Dr Grzegorz Wisz, she manufactured and performed detailed studies on photovoltaic cells made of cadmium sulphide and cadmium telluride.

Her Master's Thesis The Growth Conditions and Properties of Photovoltaic Structures made by Physical Vapour Deposition Methods was granted a High Distinction.

During the time spent in the Laboratory of Materials Technology for Industry Application, Dorota mastered the various techniques of semiconductors and metals deposition (e.g. DC&RF Magnetron Sputtering, Pulsed Laser Deposition, e-beam and thermal evaporation) and device characterisation (e.g. SEM, interference microscope, transmission spectrometry).

In June 2015, she presented her results at the International Conference in Truskaviets (Ukraine), Laser Technologies and their Application.

During her undergraduate course, Dorota gained an understanding of the combined disciplines of physics, mathematics and engineering. That experience has created a solid base for her future career.

In her third year, Dorota commenced her research into the solar photovoltaics field. Under the supervision of Dr Grzegorz Wisz and Dr Piotr Potera, she performed light reflection measurements of glass sheets that were textured with different patterns for solar module applications.

Her Bachelor's Thesis: "The Influence of the Optical Properties of a Textured Glass on the Performance of Photovoltaic Modules" was awarded the Dean's Prize for the best in her year.

In May 2013, Dorota displayed her work at the XII National Conference of Physicists Society in Kamesznica (Poland) with a poster titled: Thin-film photovoltaic technologies for Smart City 2020.

In May 2014, Dorota presented her results at IX Young Physicists Conference in Rzeszow (Poland) and won the best oral presentation prize.

The quality of her work was recognised through The First-Class Honours awarded by the Vice-Chancellor of the University.