Location (during time of takeover)
School/Institution
| Undergrad | University of the Philippines Los Baños Development Communication with minors in Agricultural Economics and Management and Environmental Science |
|---|---|
| Masters | University of the Philippines Los Baños Development Communication |
| PhD | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Environmental Studies |
Featured on January 14, 2024
Our second Pinoy Scientist of the year is Heidi Mendoza, a PhD Candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies in the Netherlands.
Heidi graduated from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Development Communication, supplementing her degrees with minors in Agricultural Economics and Management and Environmental Science. While doing her graduate studies, she also worked as a researcher at the School of Environmental Science and Management at UPLB for the Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture as an Industry in the Philippines Project (Project SARAI) together with the Department of Science and Technology.
After completing her Master’s, Heidi joined the Forest Foundation Philippines as the Program Coordinator of their Sustainable and Inclusive Landscape Governance (SILG) program. She eventually concluded her time with the foundation as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Philippines Sustainable Interventions for Biodiversity, Oceans, and Landscapes (SIBOL) project.
Now, Heidi is in the Netherlands studying flood adaptation under the Water and Climate Risk Group of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. As a PhD candidate, her research focuses on stories of drought-to-flood events in the Peruvian Amazon.
Some fun facts about Heidi:
- She always wanted to change her name because she didn’t think it would age well.
- Most of her colleagues in Amsterdam assumed she was German and kept asking about her name. She’s found that this is a good conversation starter about names in the Philippines.
- Two cute German aunts she had met on a train sang the theme-song of the cartoon Heidi out loud. This happened after they started drinking wine at 9 AM and talked to each other about their whereabouts.
