Alumni

Valerie graduated from the BS Applied Physics program in 2025. She learned how to use density functional theory techniques to study materials for her undergraduate thesis work. In particular, she investigated how electrons in transparent sapphire are redistributed when chromium atoms are substituted into the lattice, as it does in ruby crystals. She currently provides data processing services for remote clients.

Ron obtained his BS degree in Physics in 2024 summa cum laude. He was a recipient of a 2019 UP Oblation Scholarship. In his undergraduate thesis, he assessed how robust photosynthesis was in a cyanobacterial photosystem when chorophyll nodes are deactivated selectively. From 2021 to 2022, he was a research apprentice at the Protein Structure and Immunology Laboratory of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

Jerome obtained his BS Physics degree in 2017, graduating cum laude. For his BS thesis he derived thermodynamic equations for a chain of spins that are individually coupled to different heat baths. His undergraduate studies was supported by a DOST-SEI Undergraduate Merit Scholarship. He has also been an instructor at the NIP and later picked up his MS Physics (non-thesis) degree in 2022. He is currently a faculty member at the Palawan State University.

Joanne obtained her Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics, graduating <em>magna cum laude</em> in 2020. She was supported by a DOST-SEI Junior Level Science Scholarship. Her research involved studying different characteristics of classical and quantum reversible circuits and implementation of quantum algorithms. She obtained a Master's degree in Meteorology in 2022 as an MS Graduate Fellow of DOST-PAGASA, where she now uses numerical models for weather forecasting.

Allan's MS thesis involved a variational Monte Carlo study of confined quantum particles in external fields, which he successfully defended in 2008. He pursued further graduate studies at the Department of Physics of Osaka University. He obtained his PhD in Physics there doing research in theoretical high energy physics and cosmology, particularly on inflationary models of the universe. He is now an Associate Professor at the UP Los Baños Institute of Physics.

Anthony obtained his BS Physics degree in 2009. After graduating from UP Diliman, he attended the University of Southampton where he completed the Master of Science program in Sound and Vibration Studies last 2011. He then moved to Toronto where he works as an analyst for a Canadian consulting firm that specializes in providing sound solutions for land use planning, architectural applications, and other acoustical problems.

Sheen obtained her BS Applied Physics degree in 2020 with the support of a DOST-SEI Undergraduate S&amp;T Scholarship. For her thesis, she determined the effect of adding additional interacting atoms to the phonon density of states in a silicene junction, using a harmonic interaction model until the next-nearest neighboring atoms. She spent a lot of her free time with her labmates and friends in SanD, which has been a home to her. She is now working as a risk analyst.

Danna finished the BS Applied Physics (Materials Physics) program <em>magna cum laude </em>in 2018 and was supported by a DOST-SEI Merit Scholarship. Danna's research involved developing methods to study the elastic and piezoelectric properties of hexagonal crystals with the Quantum ESPRESSO software package. Danna later pursued graduate studies in numerical weather and climate modeling, obtaining an MS degree in Meteorology from the UPD Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology in 2021.

Eia obtained her MS degree in physics in 2011. In her research she used epidemiological models to simulate the spread of malware. As a graduate student she was a university RA and the systems administrator of SanD. Eia is a reservoir engineer for the second largest geothermal energy producer in the world at their headquarters in Ortigas. As part of her career development, she spent several months in Reykjavik as a participant in a geothermal energy training program.

Clei completed her Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics in 2018 and Master's degree in Physics in 2020. She worked on molecular dynamics simulations of bulk metallic glasses for a year before turning her attention to the study of quantum spin chains. Her research involved calculating several entanglement measures on a Kitaev chain with long-range interactions and analyzing its quantum critical behavior. She obtained her MS Physics degree from the NIP in 2020 with support from the DOST-ASTHRD Program. She is currently a data analyst for a management consultancy company.

Carlos defended his PhD dissertation on spin-polarized currents in nanowires in December 2015. His research was supported by a CHED scholarship and a <a href="http://www.ovcrd.upd.edu.ph/grants/">UPD OVCRD </a>dissertation grant. The results of his work has been presented in conferences around the Philippines, Vietnam, China, and Singapore. Carlos has worked as a University Research Associate for SanD from 2013-2015.

Ben earned his BS Physics degree in 2018, with his research on disordered XY spin chains being cited as a Leticia Shahani Awardee for Best BS Physics Undergraduate Thesis. He studied the effect of a random transverse field on the correlation functions of the XY model. He entered the <a href="https://cm.upm.edu.ph/">UP College of Medicine</a> soon after and obtained his medical MD degree in 2024. ;<p style="text-align: justify;"> ;

Rona is a faculty member of the UPLB <a href="http://imsp.uplb.edu.ph/">Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Physics</a>. She successfully defended her MS Physics thesis on spin-orbit entanglement in a two-dimensional electron gase in 2015. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree at the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences at the Academia Sinica with a research focus on vibrational spectroscopy.

Francis completed his MS Physics degree in 2015 as a <a href="http://www.science-scholarships.ph/asthrdp.php">DOST-ASTHRDP</a&gt; scholar. His MS research work has been presented in conferences in <a href="/aqis2014">Kyoto</a> and <a href="/stellenbosch2015">Stellenbosch</a> ;as part of the OVCRD-funded <a href="/fparaan">Project No. 141420 PhDIA</a>.

Donna graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics. She later obtained postgraduate certificates in Information Technology from the UP ITTC (now <a href="http://itdc.up.edu.ph/">ITDC</a&gt;) and Stanford, as well as a Master's degree in Technology Management from the UP <a href="http://www.tmc.upd.edu.ph/">TMC</a&gt;.

Karla obtained her MS Physics degree in 2007 with the support of a PCASTRD-DOST graduate scholarship. She used molecular dynamics simulations to model reacting chemical species for her MS thesis. She has been an instructor for the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) of Western Mindanao State University (WMSU) in Zamboanga City since 1998. Karla is among the first advanced physics degree holders of the CSM faculty and has actively worked for the CHEd accreditation of WMSU's physics programs.

Ella obtained her BS in Applied Physics with a concentration in Instrumentation Physics in 2024. Inspired by a childhood dream of becoming a scientist, she pursued research in computational biophysics. Her undergraduate thesis explored the Penna bit-string model to simulate biological aging in sexually reproducing populations, examining how recombination, mutation accumulation, and selection dynamics influence genetic diversity and population stability through measures such as heterozygosity and allele frequency distributions.

With the support of a DOST-SEI Merit Scholarship, Jayven completed the BS Applied Physics program in 2024, graduating ;<em>magna cum laude</em>. He studied how well different ODE models fit the volume growth dynamics of cultured cancerous cell colonies and tumors in a patient's body. ; ;

Xavier earned his Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education (2013) and his MA degree in Education (2021), both from West Visayas State University. He passed the licensure examination for teachers in 2013 and has been a physics teacher and research adviser at the Philippine Science High School Western Visayas Campus since 2016. While on study leave from PSHS, he pursued graduate studies at NIP, aiming to further develop his expertise as a teacher and adviser, and to fulfill his teenage dream of becoming a physicist.

Mark completed the BS Applied Physics program with concentration in Materials Physics and graduated <em>magna cum laude</em> in 2024. He was supported by a DOST-SEI RA 7687 Scholarship and the Oblation Scholarship program. While in SanD, he studied the optical and electronic properties of corundum using first-principles simulations. His research is part of an effort to model the optical properties of gemstones. ;

Marc graduated <em>cum laude</em> with a Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics in 2020. For his undergraduate thesis research, he used Monte Carlo techniques and an agent-based model to simulate cell and tissue growth on a plane. Marc is also an avid data scientist and has helped esports players use tournament data to analyze the meta. He now works as a risk underwriting analyst for a financing firm.

Yvene obtained his BS Physics degree in 2026, graduating <em>summa cum laude</em> with the support of a DOST-SEI scholarship. His undergraduate thesis investigated the effects of Poissonian resetting on aggregation with sum and product kernels, with a focus on characterizing steady states, optimization, and dynamical phase transitions. Outside of physics, he likes enriching his experience of life by learning and thinking through contemporary philosophy, using it to uncover misconceptions in modern discourse and question common sense.

Jet graduated from the BS Applied Physics program cum laude in 2026. He worked on constructing circuits for programming quantum computers that are used to study magnetism and phase transitions in spin chains. Jet simulated these circuits on Qiskit, which is the software development kit for IBM's quantum computers.

Jairus graduated with a BS Applied Physics degree in early 2021. His undergraduate thesis was on the thermoelectric effect and he studied how the amount of heat in a solid changes with applied electric fields and the intrinsic properties of the material. Jairus has since worked as a full-stack software engineer working on web, data engineering, and blockchain applications. He was active in the local music scene through the UP Music Circle and his band Granny Lee, and continues his involvement by helping to produce shows and events.</span>

Kaye finished the BS Applied Physics program to prepare for a future career in medicine. For her undergraduate thesis, she simulated the growth and stabilization of biological populations with individual genomes modeled as a binary string. After graduating <em>cum laude</em> in 2025, she began her medical education at the Mariano Marcos State University College of Medicine in Batac.

Raymart obtained his BS Physics degree from Silliman University in 2015. He then moved to NIP to pursue an MS Physics degree with the support of a ;<a href="http://www.sei.dost.gov.ph/">DOST-SEI</a&gt; ASTHRDP Graduate Scholarship. He completed the MS Physics program in 2018 doing research on locating quantum critical transitions in a Kitaev chain with long-range interactions.

Micielle defended her MS thesis on Monte Carlo studies of critical percolating systems last 2012. During her MS studies she tutored students in science and mathematics and later also worked for a quality management company as an ISO consultant. Shortly after receiving her MS degree, Micielle was appointed as a university RA for SanD and held that position until 2013. She currently resides in Winnipeg where she is pursuing a career in physics education.

Jami obtained her BS in Applied Physics degree in 2024. Her undergraduate thesis work involved the simulation of a population of individuals with a varying number of reproduction cycles within their lifetime. Soon after graduation, she worked as a data analyst for an IT provider based in Taguig.

Marc completed his Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics last 2020. As the SanD systems administrator, he was responsible for managing the group's computing cluster. In 2019 he interned at the Philippine Genome Center Core and developed an interest in bioinformatics. For his undergraduate thesis he investigated the application of graph convolutional networks for predicting potential therapeutic protein targets in a biological network.

Cris obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Physics in 2007. In the years following her graduation, she has been a senior software developer for an IT firm that supplies integrated general insurance software to its customers. She now applies her expertise in SQL databases as a systems architect for one of the Philippines' top medical centers.

Mel completed his MS degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2017 with the support ;of the DOST ASTHRD Program. He used density functional theory to perform electronic ;structure and nudged elastic band calculations to model the electrochemical reduction of ;carbon dioxide with an organocobalt catalyst. He obtained his BS degree in Chemistry from ;UP Diliman and was one of the top scorers in the 2016 Licensure Examination for Chemists. ;He is currently a PhD student at the Department of Precision Engineering of Osaka University.<a href="/alumni/mchiong"></a>

Richmond completed the BS Applied Physics program in 2020. His student research work was on numerical simulations of random walks in the presence of drift forces. He now applies his computing and programming skills to analyze logistical data for an e-commerce company.

Nick graduated <em>cum laude</em> from the BS Physics program in 2017. His research was on finding simple ways to improve the outcomes of machine learning by deep neural networks. Also, as the HPC systems administrator of SanD, he has worked to integrate GPU capabilities into the laboratory's computing facility. He is now a data scientist for an AI consulting and development company in San Diego.

<p style="text-align: justify;">April finished the BS Applied Physics program in 2008 and the MS Physics program in 2016. She has worked for an IT services provider and trained in IBM ;business server programming and operations, handling RPG development tasks on financial systems. She was later hired by an e-commerce company as a JDE developer and, later, supervisor for their back-end operations. She also has an interest in trading and portfolio and risk management. April is currently an instructor at the New Era University.

David obtained his BS Applied Physics degree in 2026 and was awarded the Best Undergraduate Thesis in Applied Physics Award for his work in developing machine learning models for predicting the structural parameters of crystals from compositional data. He has assisted in setting up, maintaining, and managing the NIP-HPC Cluster. He is interested in the applications of AI/ML and physics in various problems and works in quantitative finance, specifically on equity risk models.

Mark obtained his BS Physics degree <em>magna cum laude</em> in 2024. His undergraduate research at SanD revolves around quantum circuit representations of the transverse Ising model, with the aim of implementing perturbation correction calculations on quantum computers. He continued his research at the NIP as an MS Physics graduate student.

Alyana obtained her Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics degree in 2023. Her thesis showcased a similarity search technique called locality-sensitive hashing for classifying article abstracts and titles from the arXiv repository. She now serves a universal banking institution as a data analytics officer for business transformation and development, where she applies her skills to drive data-driven strategies and business growth.

Tristan completed the NIP BS Applied Physics program in 2021. He used natural language processing techniques to perform an automated and unsupervised classification of a large number of scientific articles for his undergraduate thesis. He now uses his programming skills and knowledge of machine learning models as a data analyst for a multi-industry financial services company.

Kryzz graduated ;from the BS Applied Physics program in 2019 with the support of a DOST-SEI RA 7687 Undergraduate S&amp;T Scholarship. His undergraduate thesis focused on parallelization of the density matrix renormalization group with the matrix product state ansatz. He is pursuing a career in data science and is currently an analyst for a company that provides business communications solutions.

Leon graduated from the BS Applied Physics program in 2022 with <em>magna cum laude</em> distinction. Having been interested in coding and computational physics since high school, he chose to do his thesis on the simulation of separating confined particles undergoing Brownian motion. ; He immediately followed a career path in data science by joining several training programs in data analysis.