Prof. Karolak-Michalska is a political scientist and an expert in ethnopolitics in the post-Soviet space (habilitated doctor). She obtained her post-doctoral degree (habilitation) at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2022, based on the thesis Ethnopolitics in Eastern European Countries. Implications for Security. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Warsaw.

She has extensive academic experience as a lecturer at several Polish universities, where she has taught political science, international relations, business psychology, and human resource management. She has participated in international research programs and serves as a thematic editor for the journal Studia Wschodnioeuropejskie (Eastern European Studies) at the University of Warsaw, as well as an editor for other leading Polish academic journals.

Prof. Karolak-Michalska is the author of over 70 scientific publications on ethnopolitics and security in the post-Soviet region. She is the co-author of a book on the Russian minority in Eastern Europe and the author of the pioneering monograph Ethnopolitics in Eastern European Countries. Implications for National Security (Leiden–Boston, 2025). Her experience in foreign trade and commercial negotiations with Eastern European countries adds a practical dimension to her academic work in international relations.

Her research interests include national minorities, migration, political transformations, and security studies.