Prof. Maciej Jarosz began his adventure with chemistry in his school days at the Jan Kochanowski High School in Radom, when he took part in Chemical Olympics three times, being the winner and twice awarded at the final stage of the competition. He graduated with honours from the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology as a specialist in homogenous catalysis and organometallic chemistry. He started working in the Chair of Analytical Chemistry (then Department of Analytical Chemistry) in 1976 as an assistant and in 2005 he was appointed full professor. His doctoral dissertation on the spectrophotometric determination of palladium (at that time quite modern technology) was written under the direction of Prof. Zygmunt Marczenko. The fascination with absorption of radiation in the visible range and ultraviolet lasted until the mid 1990s, and after a relatively short chromatographic period, Prof. Jarosz shifted his interests into the area of coupled techniques: high-performance separation techniques combined with detectors – mass spectrometers and their applications in speciation environmental and food analysis, research into mechanisms of interactions of body proteins with organometallic compounds and nanoparticles, as well as identification and determination of natural colouring substances in works of art.
Prof. Maciej Jarosz was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry in 1991-1996. In 2006 became the Head of the Chair of Analytical Chemistry and remained in this position until 2023. Many times he returned to Freta Street in Warsaw, to the seat of the Polish Chemical Society – in the 1990s as treasurer of the Main Board, at the beginning of the 20th century as vice-president and treasurer, then as the first vice-president and treasurer, and now – treasurer. Since 1999, he has been a member of the Editorial Board of the PTChem Orbital. Since that year, he has been elected to the Committee of Analytical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences for successive terms by the Polish analyst community (since 2007 he has been a member of its Presidium). He participated in the work of the Scientific Council of the National Medicines Institute, the Scientific Council of the Pharmaceutical Institute, and currently the Central Institute for Labour Protection – the National Research Institute.
In 2008-2011 he was Poland’s representative in the Analytical Chemistry Division, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and Interdivisional Committee on Terminology, Nomenclature and Symbols, IUPAC, and in 2011-2012 he was a member of the Steering Committee of the Division of Analytical Chemistry of European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences, EUCheMS. He also served as regional editor for Central Europe for the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (currently he is a member of the International Advisory Board of this journal).
He organized many scientific conferences, including the PTChem Congress, World Polymer Congress (he acted as the coordinator of the Organizing Committee), and Euroanalysis 2013. He was honoured with the Gold Cross of Merit, the Honorary Medal of the PTChem, Victor Kemula Medal and the Commemorative Medal of the Society, as well as the Andrzej Waksmundzki Medal awarded by the Committee of Analytical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
He presented the results of his work in over a hundred publications; they were also presented in over 300 communications and conference lectures. He also co-authored two editions of the textbook “Analiza instrumentalna” [Instrumental Analysis] and edited the monograph “Nowoczesne techniki analityczne” [Modern Analytical Techniques].