Structure and Dynamics Group

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.

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.

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.

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. He is currently studying medicine at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center.

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.

Joyce obtained her MS degree in physics in 2009 studying percolation in different two-dimensional geometries. She worked for STI College Caloocan while completing the MS program and for a few more years thereafter. Since 2013 she has been a full-time lecturer at the Far Eastern University in Manila. She is also a content writer for an educational publishing company.

Gene joined SanD in the academic year following his summer internship in 2013. He obtained his MS Physics degree in June 2016 with support from the DOST ASTHRD Program. In his master's thesis Gene investigated the role of disorder in topological insulators, a topic that he intends to explore further in his PhD studies. He has been an instructor at the National Institute of Physics and currently does simulation and modeling work for PHIVOLCS.

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.

Marites obtained her MS in Physics degree in 2004. She later entered the Diploma Programme of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. After completing the Diploma Programme in condensed matter physics, she continued her PhD studies at the Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands. She has since joined a high-tech equipment manufacturing company as a technical supplier engineer.

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.

Gerard finished his BS Physics degree in 2019. During his stay at SanD he modeled the anomalous diffusion of tracer particles on a graphene lattice using random walks and site percolation. He is now starting a career in data science at a financial institution in Makati.

Amancio obtained his Bachelor's degree in Physics from MSU-IIT. He joined SanD as a DOST-ASTHRDP scholar and completed the NIP MS Physics program in 2017. His research simulated the effects of generic diversity in populations of individuals with genotypes modeled by bit strings. He is faculty member of the University of Southern Mindanao in North Cotabato.

Mykhal received his BS degree in Applied Physics from UP Los Baños in 2014. He continued his studies at the NIP as a DOST ASTHRDP scholar and graduated from the MS Physics program in 2021. He has served SanD in various capacities as a Research Assistant, project staffer, and resident yo-yo champion. His thesis work on machine learning used tensor network-based codes for image classification. He now earns a living as a software developer.

Dan graduated from the National Institute of Physics with a Master of Science in Physics degree in 2018. His research involved a theoretical investigation of the role of magnetic orbit to orbit interaction between electrons in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Dan's graduate research and studies were supported by the DOST-SEI ASTHRDP scholarship.

Jade completed her MS Physics degree in 2016. She has presented her research on fluctuations and entanglement in matrix product state representable states at the 13th Asia Pacific Physics Conference in Brisbane. Jade is a faculty member of the Central Luzon State University and her MS studies was supported by the CHEd Faculty Development Program. 

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.

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.

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.

Earl graduated from the BS Applied Physics program in 2010. He later obtained a Certificate in Information Technology (Mobile and Embedded Systems) from the UP ITTC (now ITDC). He works for a global energy company where he developed SharePoint architecture for its business applications. He was also briefly deployed to the US as a lead developer for a multisite SharePoint stack standardization initiative. Earl was later assigned to his firm's JDE projects team, which provides consulting and support services for the management of enterprise assets.