Wiktoria Pawlak, a Poland-based bioengineer and AI researcher, has received a 2026 O'Shaughnessy Fellowship to build an AI model that decodes the electrical patterns cells use to guide healing, growth and regeneration.
Wiktoria Pawlak, a Poland-based bioengineer and AI researcher, has received a 2026 O'Shaughnessy Fellowship to build an AI model that decodes the electrical patterns cells use to guide healing, growth and regeneration.
Wiktoria Pawlak receives an O'Shaughnessy Fellowship to build an AI model that decodes cells' electrical signals, enabling therapies that guide regeneration rather than relying on drugs.
GREENWICH, Conn., Aug. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ --Â O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (OSV), an investment firm that empowers creators, has awarded an O'Shaughnessy Fellowship to Wiktoria Pawlak, a bioengineer and AI researcher based in Poland.
Pawlak will use the fellowship to build an AI model trained to recognize the recurring electrical patterns cells use to guide their own healing, growth and regeneration. She will apply that work toward new electroceutical therapies that use electrical signals, rather than drugs, to treat disease. Rather than looking at each electrical signal from a cell in isolation, Pawlak's model looks for patterns across time, revealing how tissue organizes itself as it recovers. Over the next 12 months, she plans to build and validate a proof of concept that identifies whether tissue is healthy or diseased, predicts how it will change, and isolates which patterns matter most for one disease model, beginning with cancer.
Pawlak earned a Master of Engineering in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a Rafał Brzoska Foundation scholar and received the Fung Institute's MEng Opportunity Award. At Berkeley, she co-developed a platform for electrically stimulating heart cells and built CellLense, a computer-vision system for cardiac-cell microscopy. Previously, at Tilburg University, she modeled how the electrical signals inside glial cells, the brain's support cells, shift as they transition toward glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Earlier, she researched brain-inspired chip designs for neural implants at the medical technology company ni2o and worked on connectomics, the mapping of neural connections, at the Friedrich Miescher Institute. In 2026, Forbes Women Poland named her to its list of 26 women to watch this year.
OSV's founder and CEO, Jim O'Shaughnessy, commented, "Wiktoria's resume speaks for itself. She's been working at the frontier of bioelectricity for years, and has the intelligence and ambition to turn that work into something transformative for patients. We're honored to be backing her."
"Some ideas ask us not to be certain, but not to be afraid. Joining the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships gives me the community and support to pursue my research further with that kind of courage," said Pawlak.
About the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships Program
Launched in 2023, the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers the world's boldest creatives, builders and researchers. Fellows receive a grant of up to $100,000 and gain access to OSV's network of founders, investors and experts. OSV will award up to 20 fellowships in 2026.
Pawlak is the twentieth fellow announced in 2026. More information about previous fellows is available at OSV's website.
Applications for the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on Jan. 1, 2027. Individuals interested in applying can do so via OSV's website.
About O'Shaughnessy Ventures
OSV is a creative investment firm that empowers creators to bring their ideas to life. Founded by Jim O'Shaughnessy, a pioneer in quantitative investing, founder of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, and author of five books, OSV aims to provide financial support and to partner in growing the next life-changing creative ideas.
OSV combines Jim's deeply rooted interest in all things art, science, investing and technology with his long-held desire to establish scenarios designed to help promising creators and their inspiring ideas succeed, regardless of age, location, job history or level of education. For more information, visit OSV's website.
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