Patrick graduated cum laude with a BS degree in Applied Physics in 2017. His undergraduate studies were supported by a UP Oblation Scholarship and a DOST Merit Scholarship. For his BS thesis he implemented a version of the Penna model that avoided artificial deaths. In 2015 he was also a project aide for the research project OVPAA-BPhD-2012-05. He worked briefly as an NIP Instructor and is currently a data analyst.
Faye Espalmado completed the BS Applied Physics program in 2022 with the support of a DOST Merit Scholarship. She made extensive use of her computing skills for her undergraduate thesis project, where she used a particle swarm optimization algorithm to simulate the folding of a hydrophobic-polar protein model on a two-dimensional square lattice. After graduating from NIP, she intends to continue pursuing her interests in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Robbie graduated cum laude from the BS Applied Physics program in 2017 and completed the MS Physics program in 2020. He was supported by a DOST-SEI RA 7687 Undergraduate S&T Scholarship. His research involved using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) techniques to map out the ground phase diagram of a one-dimensional extended Hubbard model from its correlation functions and entanglement entropy. Robbie was also a student assistant for the OVCRD-funded Project No. 161614 PhDIA. He is now a data scientist working for a credit and finance company.
Benedick graduated with a BS degree in Applied Physics in 2025. For his undergraduate thesis, he compared differing methods by multiple authors on initializing Penna's biological aging model and looked for any discrepancies in the established methodologies. His focus on this computer model stemmed from his love for programming, which he often does in his spare time.
Sandre obtained her Bachelor's degree in Physics in 2025, graduating cum laude. She was supported by a DOST–SEI Undergraduate S&T Scholarship. Her research focused on applying machine learning techniques, particularly a stacked model approach, to classify toxic algal bloom events, while addressing data imbalance issues.
Ian finished the BS Physics program in 2018. His undergraduate thesis work focused on using Python libraries to achieve GPU acceleration in intensive algebraic calculations. He has worked as a staffer for PhDIA Project 161614, ECWRG Project 2018-1-009, and the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas. He is now a systems developer for an IT solutions provider.
Zed obtained his BS Applied Physics degree in 2017 with the support of a DOST-SEI RA 7687 Undergraduate S&T Scholarship. He was also a student assistant for the OVCRD-funded Project No. 141420 PhDIA. For his undergraduate research he used molecular dynamics simulations to evaluate the metallic glass forming ability of a copper-silver alloy. He is now a senior high school physics instructor in Bacolod City.
Nica graduated magna cum laude with a BS Applied Physics degree in 2018. Her work on ballistic thermal transport in graphene junctions was recognized by the College of Science as the Best BS Applied Physics Undergraduate Thesis (Leticia Shahani Award). She was supported by the UPAA of Alberta, UP Presidential, and Angelo King Scholarship grants and worked as a project staffer while a student in SanD. Nica continues her graduate studies under the Condensed Matter Physics Diploma Programme at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.
Razel completed the BS Applied Physics program of NIP in 2006. She has previously worked in Dubai for an international government services provider and for the Dubai Metro. She later returned to the Philippines and has since been an analyst for an international content management services company.
Paula completed the BS Physics program of NIP in early 2026. For her undergraduate thesis work, she refined a theoretical model for the optical properties of a sapphire crystal, like its index of refraction for different colors. To do this, she combined results from fast, inaccurate calculations with those from a slower but accurate one, while enforcing the requirement that materials can only respond to forces applied in the past (through a Kramers–Kronig relation). She now works as a data analyst for a healthcare provider in Quezon City.
Anjo obtained his BS Applied Physics degree in 2023. In his thesis, he explored the use of the two-dimensional Ising model to simulate the opinion dynamics of a voting population participating in a two-party election system. Outside the SanD laboratory, he works as a music producer and executive assistant for an independent game development studio. He plans to pursue a career in data science to fuel his aspiration to become a game developer.
Hans obtained his BS Applied Physics degree magna cum laude in 2024. In his undergraduate thesis, he worked with explainable artificial intelligence methods to identify notable regions that best characterize the decade of time slices of a sea surface temperature simulation model. He is currently an Erasmus Mundus scholar pursuing a joint master's degree in Sustainable Systems Engineering with a specialization track in Advanced Machine Learning and Optimization of Systems.
Rayda studied the thermodynamics and transport properties of two-dimensional electron systems at low temperatures as a SanD researcher. She was also an NIP instructor and a CHED scholar. She obtained her PhD degree in 2011 and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics in Pohang, South Korea for three years. Upon her return to the Philippines in 2015 Rayda became a faculty member of the Mapúa Institute of Technology.
Jersey graduated cum laude from the BS Applied Physics program in 2021. Her research work investigated the critical behavior of magnetic models of varying dimensions. She is now a practicing data engineer and uses her skills to provide organizations with complex data analysis and help them make data-driven decisions.
Lenie got her Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics in 2006. She worked for a digital content services and solutions provider as an analyst of technical and scientific documents. In 2008 she obtained a Certificate in Information Technology (Applications Development) from the UP ITTC (now ITDC). She later moved to Singapore while performing search engine optimization (SEO) tasks for several technology firms. In 2010 she joined a Singaporean retail company in a management position that handles their e-commerce strategies.
Mico obtained his Bachelor's degree in Physics magna cum laude in early 2024 with the support of DOST RA 7687 Scholarship. For his undergraduate thesis work, he simulated the spread of cells in tissues with reduced food supplies using Monte Carlo methods and agent-based modeling. He now applies his data analysis skills in the finance sector as a risk analyst.
Mike completed his Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics in 2019. His undergraduate thesis focused on determining higher order periods of solutions to the logistic equation using a Chebyshev spectral decomposition. Mike served the College of Science Student Council for two years as the National Institute of Physics Representative and as a Councilor. During his free time, Mike does photography and plays football. In 2024 he completed his medical internship at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center.
MC received her BS Applied Physics degree in 2020. For her undergraduate research work she applied machine learning algorithms to detect polyps in colonoscopy video frames. This work was cited while she participated in a MOST GASE Summer Program last 2019. She has also interned at the Philippine Genome Center (bioinformatics) and a data science consultancy firm (GIS). She was an Erasmus Mundus scholar from 2020 to 2022, earning an MS degree tackling image processing and computer vision problems. She worked briefly for a bioinformatics project in Singapore before entering a PhD program at Leiden University.
Jacob graduated from the BS Applied Physics program in 2020 as a DOST Merit scholar. For his undergraduate research thesis, he performed molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the break up of colliding clusters of silica dust. Jacob's work on this topic stemmed from his keen interest in astronomy and he has been an active member of the UP Astronomical Society. In 2022 he entered the MS Agrometeorology program of the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Gene graduated from the BS Physics program in 2022 cum laude and the MS Physics program in 2025. His research focuses on the theoretical description of quantum heat engines. He was a Teaching Associate and an Instructor as an NIP graduate student. Gene is set to continue advanced studies in the ICTP Diploma Programme in 2025.
Zach got his BS Physics degree in 2024, graduating summa cum laude. His bachelor's thesis covered the effect of cluster geometry on the localization of particles in disordered lattice systems. He developed and honed his skills in computational physics performing simulations for his research. He is currently investigating phonon interactions in chiral spin liquids as an MS Physics student and member of the Theoretical Physics Group.
Steph obtained her BS Applied Physics degree in 2007. She has worked as a mainframe programmer for a Filipino information technology company that provides integrated services for corporate clients. She now develops applications for the information technology department of a financial services and insurance provider.
Oliver obtained his BS degree in Applied Physics in 2006. Shortly after graduation, he joined a development and application support center of a North American retail company as a programmer. He has also worked as a software engineer and analyst for several international management consulting firms and information technology solutions providers. He has since moved to Kuala Lumpur where he has been a senior analyst programmer for a leading Southeast Asian financial and banking company since 2013.
Ajay obtained his BS Physics degree in 2024 as a DOST-SEI scholar. His undergraduate thesis involved employing computational techniques on geospatial datasets to study the association between nighttime lights and COVID-19 incidence. He has applied his skills and knowledge of data science as a data manager and market analyst in the finance and agricultural sector.
Francis obtained his BS degree in Physics in 2025 summa cum laude. His undergraduate thesis involved exploring the electronic properties of twisted NiPS₃ through density functional theory to find out its potential in spintronic and semiconducting applications. His undergraduate studies was supported by a DOST–SEI Undergraduate Merit Scholarship. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Physics at the National Institute of Physics as a Teaching Associate.
Salvador (BJ) completed his BS degree in Physics in June 2016. For his undergraduate thesis he computed exact elliptic integral expressions for the average work done in quenched Ising model ground states. In 2015, BJ also worked as a project staffer for the OVPAA-funded Balik PhD research project OVPAA-BPhD-2012-05.
Hilton earned his BS degree in Physics in 2012 and has worked briefly for a Filipino information technology firm. He has later decided to pursue a career in law and entered the UP College of Law in 2013. He passed the Philippine Bar Examination held last November 2018.
Wyatt obtained his BS in Applied Physics degree in 2019. His undergraduate thesis used image preprocessing and a machine learning algorithm for the computer vision problem of identifying pneumonia in X-ray images. He later completed the MS Data Science program of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he did research on real-time computer vision applications.
Gerard earned his BS Physics degree from UP Diliman in 2019. At SanD, he modeled anomalous diffusion of tracer particles on a graphene lattice using random walks and site percolation. After graduation, he pursued a career in data science, working first in the banking sector on fraud and compliance analytics, and later in the telecommunications industry analyzing large-scale transactional data. Gerard then moved to Australia, where he works on compliance-driven data governance projects. During this time, he also pursued a postgraduate degree in cybersecurity.
Marc graduated with a BS Physics degree in 2021. Under the challenging conditions at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, his thesis work involved modeling the effectiveness of a vaccination campaign using a compartmental susceptible-infectious-recovered SIR model. He soon after utilized his computer and analytical skills as a data analyst for a proxy advisory firm.
Joshua obtained his BS degree in Physics summa cum laude in 2023. He was supported by a DOST-SEI Undergraduate Merit Scholarship. His BS thesis involved training convolutional neural networks to predict 24-hour wildfire spread through image segmentation. He now intends to pursue a career in data science in the financial sector using the programming and analytical skills he learned during his time at the National Institute of Physics.
Ralph obtained his BS Physics degree from NIP in 2006 and a Master's degree in Technology Management from the UP TMC in 2012. He was a network administrator for SanD. He has been involved with editorial services providers writing abstracts and indexing scientific articles. He has also worked for an IT services company and led a team of its technology consultants. Ralph later joined a multilateral development bank as an IT process analyst. He has since continued practicing IT service management as a change manager for a global financial management firm.
Ron completed the BS Physics program in 2004. His thesis was cited as the most outstanding BS Physics thesis of his graduating batch. He obtained further post-graduate training in network systems IT (UP ITDC) and technology management (UP TMC). Ron has worked for companies that integrate and provide IT system solutions. He is a certified Cisco professional and instructor that has designed and handled customized IT training programs. He now applies his expertise in enterprise and data network infrastructure to manage network engineering and services for a telecommunications company.
Ryoj completed his Bachelor’s degree in Physics in 2026 with cum laude distinction. His undergraduate research focused on investigating the effect of increasing interatomic repulsion on the electronic properties of sapphire with chromium impurities. With particular focus on the crystal field splitting of the Cr 3d orbitals, his work is part of efforts to completely understand the red color of rubies.
Matthew completed the NIP BS Applied Physics program in 2019. For his undergraduate thesis he calculated the hydrodynamic properties of submersibles used for rapid underwater coral surveying by computational fluid dynamics. After graduation he pursued his ambition to work in the aerospace sector, becoming a satellite operations engineer and mission planner for the Philippine Space Agency. In his free time, he performs in gigs around Metro Manila with his band Pinkmen.
Von obtained his BS degree in Physics in 2019, graduating with magna cum laude honors. His undergraduate thesis is about simulating 2D materials using density functional theory. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering under the UP Diliman College of Science. When outside the laboratory or free from course work, Von spends his time engaging in sports and recreation.
Chris obtained his BS Physics degree in 2004. He studied the Penna model of biological aging using short bit strings and investigated its relationship to the logistic equation and chaos. He is now happily married to a fellow SanD alumna and provides plants with carbon dioxide while also working as a computer programmer.
Claire graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Physics in 2007. She is now a professional programmer and for many years has been developing software for several information and computer technology companies. She has been actively involved with projects that deal with web deployment, cloud migration, database management, and network development (user and backend interfaces). Recently, Claire has focused on the development and maintenance of desktop applications, with an eye on developing embedded and mobile apps in the future.
Eric obtained his BS Physics degree in 2004. He studied the low energy states of polymers by Monte Carlo methods for his undergraduate thesis. After graduation, he pursued a career in information technology and became a certified Java programmer. Over the years, his programming skills have been tapped by several software outsourcing companies in the Philippines. Eric moved to Singapore in 2007 and works for the investment banking division of a Swiss global bank as a Java developer and systems analyst.
Mario finished his Bachelor’s degree in Applied Physics with magna cum laude distinction in 2019. For his undergraduate research he studied the electronic structure of adsorbed greenhouse gas molecules on graphene surfaces by density functional theory. He later obtained an MS Physics degree from the University of Warwick (2021) and is currently a PhD student at the University of Birmingham under the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Topological Design.
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