Jaever Santos

Featured on February 4, 2024

Opening up the month of February is Pinoy Scientist Jaever “Jae” Santos, a scientific officer for an Australian national agency. His work there deals primarily with taxonomy and biodiversity data, making use of his extensive background in marine and computer science.

Jae is a graduate of the University of Auckland, where he earned his Bachelor of Science majoring in both computer and marine science while simultaneously completing a Diploma of Languages in Korean. Returning to his alma mater after two years, he also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Science specializing in marine science. Before pursuing his Master’s, Jae worked at the Auckland War Memorial Museum as a collections technician, cataloging, rehousing, and labeling micromollusc samples. He received his Master’s degree in Marine Science from the Auckland University of Technology, graduating with first class honors in 2020.

Since then, Jae has worked at the Australian Museum as a Digitising Technical Officer for Malacology – the study of molluscs – then later as a Database Support Officer. Recently, he has been putting his experience in taxonomy and biodiversity database management to good use at one of Australia’s national agencies, where he now works as a scientific officer.

Some fun facts about Jae:

• He’s riding the Korean culture wave: With his undergraduate studies, he earned a Diploma of Languages in Korean. For his gap year, he taught English in Korea, which he considers the best year of his life so far.
• He’s an orchestra kid! He plays the viola and has performed in both orchestras and string quartets. He is known to his tutees as Mr. Santos, having taught a number of kids over the past decade.
• He described two new species of squid and named them after his parents, which you’ll find out more about later in the week.