Roman Kozłowski (1889-1977) was one of the most eminent Polish geologists and palaeontologists, founder of the Polish palaeontological school and founder of modern research on graptolites. He was born in Zazamcze, near Włocławek. In 1907 he graduated from the Włocławek School of Commerce and went to Switzerland to study natural sciences at the University of Freiburg . He then continued his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris , where he obtained a bachelor's degree in natural sciences and worked at the Museum of Natural History under Professor Marcellin Boule. In 1913, at the invitation of the Bolivian government, he took up the post of professor of geology at the School of Mines in Oruro . He travelled to South America with his wife Maria, a botanist and graduate of the Sorbonne.

He spent eight years in Bolivia, combining scientific and organisational work. In 1916 (some sources say a year earlier) he became director of the Escuela Nacional de Minas de Oruro , and was tasked with reforming the institution. Kozlowski introduced a modern curriculum and led to its elevation to the status of the National School of Mining Engineers . He organised the country's first geological museum, now known as the Museo Mineralógico , and a meteorological station, and began systematic geological and mineralogical research in the Andes. From Oruro, a centre of tin and silver mining, he made numerous expeditions to inaccessible areas of Bolivia, where he collected palaeontological and mineral materials. His collections later became the basis for research conducted by him and other Polish scholars. He published the results of his fieldwork in a series of articles on the geology and mineral wealth of Bolivia, and his early monographs, including 'Les Brachiopodes du Carbonifère supérieur de Bolivie' (1914) and 'Faune dévonienne de Bolivie' (1923), entered the classics of world palaeontology.

After his return to Europe in 1921, he completed his doctorate in natural sciences at the Sorbonne, and in 1923 returned to Poland, where he began working at the University of Warsaw . Initially he took the chair of palaeontology and geology at the Free Polish University, and from 1927 he became a full professor at the University of Warsaw. During the Second World War he was active in conspiracy at the Geological Institute, and after the war he rebuilt the destroyed Department of Palaeontology. In 1952 he founded the Institute of Palaeozoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Palaeobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences ) and headed it until his retirement.

Kozłowski was the author of some fifty scientific papers, including four fundamental monographs. His research on graptolites, which he carried out with extraordinary precision and using innovative techniques, revolutionised palaeontology. He introduced microscopic methods, hydrofluoric acid preparation and histological analyses of the structure of fossil skeletons. He was a member of the Polish, French, Czechoslovak and Colombian Academies of Sciences, honorary doctorate of the Jagiellonian University , the Sorbonne and Modena, recipient of international scientific awards, including the Wollaston Medal and the First Degree State Prize. He died on 2 May 1977 in Warsaw.