Assistant Professor in the Chair for Translation Studies at the Faculty of Philology, Jagiellonian University, where she has worked continuously since 2017. She obtained her PhD in Linguistics in 2018 from the Pedagogical University of Kraków with a dissertation entitled Efficacy of Audio Description Dedicated to Children within the Functionalist Approach to Translation. Between 2013 and 2015 she participated in the project The European Graduate Placement Scheme, which focused on fostering collaboration between universities and the language and translation services industry. In late 2018 and early 2019 she undertook a four-month postdoctoral fellowship at New York University’s Steinhardt School (Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders), funded by the Kościuszko Foundation, to carry out a project on the use of audio description in work with children and adolescents with psycho-emotional disorders (a publication presenting the findings of this research is forthcoming). In 2019 her project on the use of alternative audio description techniques in entertainment and education (submitted under the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions) was awarded the Seal of Excellence certificate by the European Commission. From 2022 to 2024 she collaborated with the University of York (School of Arts and Creative Technologies) on a two-year research project funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange under the M. Bekker Programme, devoted to creative audio description designed for young audiences. In 2023, with funding from the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) through a MINIATURA grant, she carried out the project Multifunctional Audio Description as a Tool for Full Accessibility. A Preliminary Study (Consultations), which initiated her collaboration with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In 2025, her project The Impact of Creative Captions on Viewers’ Cognitive Processes and Emotional Responses to Video Content. Empirical Research was awarded a SONATA grant, also from the NCN. At her initiative, the Cognitive Linguistics and Neuroimaging Lab was established in 2025 within the Department of Translation Studies.

Research interests

• Audiovisual translation and media accessibility (dubbing, song translation, subtitling, voice-over, audio description, and SDH).
• Compensatory education, augmentative and alternative communication, and literary translation, with a particular focus on children’s literature.
• Translation of culture-specific elements and the linguistic worldview.
• New technologies in translation; literature, art, and the legacy of antiquity.
• Reception of classical culture in later literature and art.
• Twentieth-century and contemporary French literature.

Selected publications

• Kata, G., Koziol, M., Zabrocka, M., & Poleszak, W. (2026). Enhancing audiovisual media experience with AI: Insights from a pilot study on emotionally attuned subtitles for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing audiences. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 1–19.
• Zabrocka, M., Kata, G., Bereś, A., & Materska-Samek, M. (2026). AD as a tool for supporting emotion processing in autistic children: Results of an eye-tracking study on randomised Polish participants aged 5–12. Journal of Children and Media, 20(2), 284–302.
• Zabrocka, M. (2025). When an accessibility tool becomes a tool for amusement: Brief insights into the unconventional techniques of audio description, The ATA Chronicle, 54(4), 15-19. 
• Zabrocka, M. 2023. Hear the flow: Report on the Rationale Method of audiodescribing dance performances. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 117(3), 251-255. 
• Zabrocka, M. 2021. Audio description accompanying video content as a compensatory tool in socialization and cognitive-linguistic development of children with visual impairment: The search for theory for alternative AD application. Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 38, 215-226.
• Antygona, Jean Anouilh; translation and preface by M. Zabrocka, introduction by Dr J. Filonik, edited by Prof. M. Szymański (published in 2021).
• Zabrocka, M. 2019. Speaking metaphor in audio description for children. Culture, Language and Representation, 22, 153-169.
• Zabrocka, M. 2018. Rhymed and traditional audio description according to the blind and partially sighted audience: Results of a pilot study on creative audio description. JoSTrans. Journal of Specialised Translation, 29, 212-236.
• Zabrocka, M. 2017. Emocje odzyskane w tłumaczeniu: o audiodeskrypcji artystycznej i przekładzie humoru. Przekładaniec. A Journal of Translation Studies, 35/2017, 107-127.
• Jankowska, A., Zabrocka, M. 2016. How co-speech gestures are rendered in Audio Description – a case study. Researching Audio Description. New Approaches, A. Matamala, P. Orero (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, 169-186.

Selected conferences