Piotr Sankowski is a director of IDEAS Research Institute and a professor at the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Warsaw, where he received his habilitation in 2009 and his doctorate in computer science in 2005. His research interests include algorithmics, with a particular focus on algorithmic graph analysis and data analysis algorithms. In 2009, Piotr Sankowski received his doctorate in physics in the field of solid state theory at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Piotr Sankowski was the first Pole to receive four grants from the European Research Council (ERC): ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant (2010), ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2015, 2023), ERC Consolidator Grant (2017). He is a co-founder of the Highlights of Algorithms conference. From 2021 to 2024, he was president of IDEAS NCBR, where he led the working group “Intelligent Algorithms and Data Structures.” He is co-founder and CSO of the spin-off MIM Solutions. He is a member of ELLIS Unit Warsaw with ELLIS Fellow status. Member of the Future Council and the UN Independent International Panel on AI.