Pinoy Scientists

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.

Rey Papa is a freshwater ecologist from the University of Santo Tomas. He is well-known in his college for his zooplankton research.

Christian Laurio is a materials scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bonn in Germany.

Nikki Dyanne Realubit is a graduate student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. Nikki was the project leader for establishing the ecological information on the McGregor’s pit viper in Batanes, a project coordinator for terrestrial biodiversity research methods on the birds of Tawi-Tawi and a biology teacher at the Holistic Education and Development Center in Taytay, Rizal.

Jay Fidelino is a wildlife biologist and MS Biology student at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Tara Abrina graduated with a Master’s degree in Development Economics at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her Master’s thesis revolves around the valuation of damaged coral reefs in the Philippines.

Riel Ingeniero is a PhD candidate at the Integrated School of Ocean Sciences at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany. His Master’s thesis tackled primary productivity and nitrogen uptake rates in the subarctic and temperate North Atlantic Ocean.

Searle Duay is a chemistry instructor at Adamson University. He teaches a variety of subjects including inorganic chemistry and biotechnology. His research interests include antimicrobial peptides, molecular dynamics simulations, peptide membrane interactions, biochemistry and biophysical chemistry.

Marc Mapalo is a PhD student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is currently working on combining paleontological and modern analyses to study the evolution of the body plan of tardigrades.

Rose De Guzman is a research fellow at the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology department at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Some of her current research interests include maternal-infant neuro health, neurodevelopment, sex differences and stress among others.

Wenchie Lumbera is an Assistant Professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. Since 2018, Wenchie has taught general, systemic and clinical pathology for undergraduate DVM students. Currently, she is involved in the disease surveillance and diagnosis of African swine fever.

Elijah Mojares is a PhD candidate in Medical Engineering at the Queen Mary University of London.

Claire Pascua is a PhD student in Civil Engineering at the University of Auckland. Her doctoral research revolves around the seismic performance of buildings — a topic entirely relevant in a country like the Philippines.

Lisa Lamberte is a research fellow at the University of Birmingham. She is an expert in molecular microbiology with a track record of studying gene regulation in bacteria and the human gut microbiome as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes.

Aaron Alcala is a PhD student in Genetics at the University of Georgia. For his current PhD thesis, Aaron is studying mammal, reptile, bird limb and genital development.

Armbien Sabillo is a scientist and law student seeking to go into patent law and science policy. He is currently taking up his Juris Doctor at UC Berkeley specializing in Intellectual Property Law.

Miguel Feria heads the research efforts at Indigo Research, an applied artificial intelligence (AI) research company in the Philippines. His current research interests lie in network science, complex systems and natural language processing.

Arielle Sulit is a doctoral candidate in Genetics at New Zealand’s Massey University where she is applying her skills to investigate the microbiome in colorectal cancer.

Kiwi Florido is a PhD student taking up the Biological Sciences in Public Health Program at Harvard University in the USA. She is investigating studies in the field of stem cell biology, aging, apoptosis and cancer.

Zara Fernandez is a Senior Full Stack Software Engineer at Salesforce.