This is the official website of the Structure and Dynamics Group (SanD) of the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines Diliman. SanD was established in 2003 and is one of the youngest of the six research laboratories of the NIP. The areas of specialization of SanD scientists include computational physics, condensed matter physics, statistical physics, and quantum information theory. A recurring theme of SanD's research is the interplay between the structure of a physical system and its dynamical behavior. SanD is also developing competency in high-performance computing on a custom-built computing cluster to take advantage of multi-core computers for intensive numerical calculations.
Last 24-26 May 2017 three SanD students presented their MS thesis research at the 12th Siam Physics Congress in Rayong, Thailand. The conference is jointly organized by the Thai Physics Society and Kasetsart University. Meliton Chiong III was cited as one of the best student presenters for his talk on a density functional theory study of bonding between carbon dioxide molecules and cobalt salen complexes.
The first item on the SanD 2017 research agenda was the 8th Jagna International Workshop held last 4-7 January 2017 at the Research Center for Theoretical Physics (RCTP) in Jagna, Bohol. Subtitled Structure, Function and Dynamics from nm to Gm, the workshop was organized to celebrate the 60th birthday of RCTP co-founder Prof. Christopher Bernido. SanD physicist Cristine Villagonzalo, a former advisee of Prof.
Members of SanD recently attended the Joint 13th Asia Pacific Physics Conference and 22nd Australian Institute of Physics Congress that was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre from 04-08 December 2016. Jade Mendoza delivered a short talk on her research on fluctuations and entanglement in a matrix product state representable quantum spin chain and Jan Sambo presented a poster on his work on dynamically generated phase transitions in a quenched XY model.
In a recent issue of Cellthat highlights groundbreaking research from the International Human Epigenome Consortium, SanD alumna Louella Vasquez and her collaborators in the EU Blueprint Epigenome project present a detailed study on the complex relationships among genetic and epigenetic factors and disease-causing phenotypes in human immune cells.
