Science Field: Physics

Dr. Ernest Macalalad of the Philippine Space Agency is a Chief Science Research Specialist at the agency’s Interdisciplinary Space Missions Development Division and a professor at the Mapúa University Department of Physics.

The D&C Research Group is an interdisciplinary hub committed to advancing data-driven astrophysics, computational physics, and data science for social good. Their research includes observational to gravitational wave astronomy, physics-informed machine learning methods, and data science for social good.

Gabrielle Leung is working on her PhD in Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU) in the USA. She has just successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Aerosol and Land Surface Impacts on Tropical Convective Processes.”

Gabriel Gallardo, PhD is a product manager for quantum computing at Riverlane, United Kingdom. His doctoral research revolved around looking for dark matter through the ATLAS Experiment where he led the development and re-write of Python/C++ big data analysis frameworks for thousands of researchers on the project.

Dr. Keith Nealson “Keano” Penado is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics, Ateneo de Manila University. His work with plasma first studied its effect on rice seed germination, then its use in the pyrolysis of polystyrene.

May Angelu Madarang is a research trainee at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology School at the University of Science and Technology. Her research deals primarily with device fabrication and testing, specializing in tunnel junction and solar cell fabrication.

Rene Principe Jr. is an instructor at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, where they are also taking up their PhD in Physics. Their Master’s thesis gathered insights into post-disaster behavior using geospatial data analytics in Python to analyze nighttime lights.

Hillary Diane Andales is a passionate science communicator and incoming PhD student at the University of Chicago. Her current work explores the formation of neighboring ultra-faint dwarf galaxies using computer simulations.

Ria Ysabelle Flora is a physicist, economist, and data scientist currently working as the power solutions lead for Aboitiz Data Innovation where she is utilizing her expertise in data science and artificial intelligence to develop strategies for driving business development..

Gaia Javier is a PhD candidate in Photovoltaic Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Australia. For her doctorate, Gaia is developing quantitative approaches to improve solar cell characterisation and manufacturing.

Philip Cesar Flores is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy in Berlin, Germany. His research explored the quantum time of arrival operators, investigating the quantum violation of the weak equivalence principle and the tunneling time problem.

Joseph Bandoy is a PhD student and research assistant at South Korea’s Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. Joseph’s research interests include qualitative phase imaging and physics education.

Mikaela Fudolig is a physicist and computational social scientist currently based at the University of Vermont. Her research aligns with computational social science, a highly interdisciplinary field that uses quantitative approaches on (usually big) data to understand human behavior.

Reginald Bernardo is a postdoctoral fellow at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics. His research interests include dark energy, cosmology, alternative gravity, black holes, and gravitational waves.

Jerome de Leon is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tokyo. He founded the Filipino Astronomy Community (FilAstroComm) and is also currently a mentor at SIDHI which provides mentorship to high school students.

Jane Garcia is a Physics PhD student at the University of California Merced (soon going to Johns Hopkins University!) At UC Merced, Jane is currently working on understanding the self-organization of topological defects in liquid crystal phase transitions.

Adelle Yuson is a physicist and a faculty member at Central Mindanao University and program lead of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics’ online Physics Meetup. She is passionate about introducing global physics icons like Roger Freedman to students in rural areas.

Denxybel Montinola is taking up his Master of Medical Physics at the University of Sydney, Australia where he is investigating what happens when small-scale radiotherapy doses are deposited in our lungs.

Marielle graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from UP Baguio and a Master’s degree in Astronomy at Taiwan’s National Central University where she hunted trans-Neptunian objects using the Hyper Suprime Cam.

Angelo Aquino is the co-founder and CEO of Energy Exchange Philippines, a start-up that enables vulnerable families and communities to access cheaper and cleaner electricity sources. Currently, his team at Energy Exchange Philippines is working on solar power access for an unelectrified sitio in Quezon City.