Dr hab. Konrad Szocik, prof. WSIiZ

University Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow.

Affiliated with the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow since 2014. From 2024 to 2026, he served as Vice-Rector for Research and International Cooperation.

Visiting researcher at the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), Yale University, USA (2021–2022).

He received his PhD in Philosophy from Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 2013 and his habilitation in Philosophy from the University of Lodz in 2024. He is the faculty advisor to the Feminist Philosophy Student Research Group.

His main research interests include bioethics, the ethics and philosophy of space exploration, feminist philosophy, reproductive and population ethics, and the philosophy of antinatalism. His current research focuses primarily on the ethical implications of long-term human presence beyond Earth, particularly issues related to reproduction and fertility, space medicine, human enhancement and biological modification, inequality and exclusion, and the moral status of future generations. He also works on environmental bioethics, the ethics of climate change, and the ethics of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence.

For many years, his research has developed at the intersection of philosophy, bioethics, and human spaceflight. He examines, among other issues, the moral limits of interventions in the human body in space environments, the ethics of reproduction and future extraterrestrial settlement, justice in access to space exploration, the social consequences of future space communities, and the importance of feminist perspectives for the bioethics of space exploration. A particular focus of his research is the extent to which Earth-based ethical and bioethical concepts can be applied to long-duration space missions and future human life beyond Earth.

He is the author or co-author of more than 200 academic publications, including books, journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly commentaries. A substantial part of his work has been published internationally in English. His articles have appeared in journals including Science, Bioethics, The American Journal of Bioethics, AJOB Neuroscience, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Monash Bioethics Review, npj Microgravity, Futures, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Technology in Society, Space Policy, Acta Astronautica, International Journal of Astrobiology, AI & Society, Sustainability Science, Current Anthropology, Zygon, Theology and Science, World Futures, Science and Engineering Ethics, NanoEthics, and The New Bioethics.

In 2023, Oxford University Press published his monograph The Bioethics of Space Exploration: Human Enhancement and Gene Editing in Future Space Missions. The book grew out of research conducted at Yale University during a one-year research stay funded by the Bekker Programme of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange.

In 2024, Oxford University Press published his second monograph, Feminist Bioethics in Space: Gender Inequality in Space Exploration. The book develops a feminist approach to the bioethics of space exploration and is one of the principal outcomes of the research project “Bioethics of Space Exploration,” funded by the Polish National Science Centre.

He is also the editor or co-editor of The Human Factor in a Mission to Mars: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Springer, 2019), Human Enhancements for Space Missions: Lunar, Martian, and Future Missions to the Outer Planets (Springer, 2020), and The Human Factor in the Settlement of the Moon: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Springer, 2021). Together with Hans Van Eyghen, he is the author of Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion: Religion as an Adaptation (Springer, 2021). He is also an editor of the Springer book series New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion. Selected Springer volumes edited by him have been translated into Chinese by China Astronautics Publishing House.

From 2021 to 2022, he conducted research at Yale University as a fellow of the Bekker Programme of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. From 2019 to 2022, he held a scholarship from the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young researchers. He is the principal investigator of two research projects funded by the Polish National Science Centre: “Bioethics of Space Exploration” (OPUS 21, 2022–2025, PLN 157,680) and “Antinatalist Bioethics and the Future of Humanity” (OPUS 27, 2025–2028, PLN 240,000).

In November 2025, he received the Tadeusz Kotarbiński Scientific Award in Philosophy from Division I: Humanities and Social Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences for his monograph Feminist Bioethics in Space: Gender Inequality in Space Exploration.

He has presented his research at conferences, seminars, and invited lectures in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, and Sweden. He has participated in events organized or co-organized by institutions including Yale University, the University of Oxford, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Kennedy School, Northwestern University, and the University of Toronto, as well as by international organizations working in bioethics, astrobiology, philosophy of science, and space exploration.

His current research focuses particularly on the intersections of reproductive bioethics, antinatalism, and the human future in space. He examines, among other questions, the goals and limits of space medicine, the ethical status of fertility protection during spaceflight, the moral significance of reproduction in future extraterrestrial settlements, and tensions between species survival, reproductive autonomy, and the well-being of future persons.

Author of The Bioethics of Space Exploration, published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

Author of Feminist Bioethics in Space: Gender Inequality in Space Exploration, published by Oxford University Press in 2024.

Co-author, with Hans Van Eyghen, of Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion: Religion as an Adaptation, published by Springer in 2021.

Editor of the Springer book series New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion.