Mateusz is the founder and leader of the MCLL and an Associate Professor of psychology at the Jagiellonian University (JU), holding a habilitation in psychology and a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently, he serves as the director of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, JU. At the JU, Mateusz is also an associate member of the Centre for Brain Research and a lecturer at the Cognitive Science Programme and at the Doctoral School in the Social Sciences.
His research interests focus mainly on mathematical cognition, i.e., psychological mechanisms of processing numbers and space, in various populations. In addition, Mateusz has been keenly involved in investigations on cognitive artifacts, methodological and conceptual issues in cognitive science, and social cognition. Currently, his main research foci include numerical cognition in professional mathematicians, the relationships between long-term memory and math skills, the cognitive profiles of individuals with developmental dyscalculia, and math anxiety.
Mateusz is a Principal Investigator of the following grants: "Cognitive artifacts on various time scales: An integrative approach" from National Science Centre, PL (2022–2026), "Mind, number, space: Spatial-numerical cognition in professional mathematicians" from Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland (2024-2027), and "The gist of math: Applying Fuzzy-Trace Theory as an integrative framework to investigate different dimensions of numerical memory and their associations with mathematical skills in the general population and among individuals with dyscalculia" from National Science Centre, PL (2025–2029). He also represents JU in the steering committee of a grant "ErasMAs+ Enriching HEI training to help future primary school teachers tackle math anxiety in themselves and their pupils" funded by European Comission under Erasmus+ Cooperation partnerships in higher education (2025–2028).
He authored three books, including “Foundations of geometric cognition” (Routledge, 2020), and several papers in journals such as Cognition, Emotion, Psychological Research, Consciousness and Cognition, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Animal Cognition, Acta Psychologica, PeerJ, Frontiers in Psychology, Foundations of Science, Theory & Psychology, Journal of Computational Neuroscience, Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, Topoi, Synthese, Frontiers in Psychiatry, American Journal of Bioethics, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Scientific Reports. He also co-edited five books, e.g., “The Concept of Explanation” (CCPress, 2017) and special issues of Theory & Psychology (2019) and Synthese (2021).
Mateusz is a member of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP), the Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS), the Commission for Philosophy of Sciences of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU), and the Polish Society for Cognitive Science. Currently, he collaborates with researchers from numerous universities, e.g., Loughborough University (UK), University of Graz (Austria), University of Padova (Italy), and University of California, San Diego (USA), Thomas More University, Antwerp (Belgium), and KU Leuven (Belgium). He is also active in the Una Europa alliance, particularly as a member of the Future UniLab steering committee, a think tank serving as a living lab and providing a forum for discussions and research on the future role of universities in society.
Mateusz received a number of awards and scholarships, including the “Start” Scholarship of the Foundation for Polish Science, the Scientific Prize of “Polityka” (one of the most read Polish weeklies), and the Scholarship of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scientists.
In addition to research and executive duties, Mateusz has been involved in popular science projects and book translations. Outside working hours, he is a big fan of new technologies and tech gadgets, an FPV drone pilot, and an aerial photographer. He lives in Krakow with his beloved wife and cat.
