PhD student attends Adiabatic Quantum Computing Conference

SanD PhD student Neris Sombillo presented her research at the 6th Adiabatic Quantum Computing Conference (AQC 2017) held in Tokyo, Japan last 26-29 June 2017. This is the first time that the AQC conference was held in Asia. The conference attracts researchers who work on the frontiers of adiabatic quantum computation and quantum annealing and this year's key panelists include Seth Lloyd, Daniel Lidar, Edward Farhi, Helmut Katzgraber, Norio Murakami, Hartmut Neven, and Paul Warburton. Several companies that do research and development in quantum computing such as D-Wave, Google, and NASA also participated in the conference. In the conference poster session Neris presented her dissertation research on the simulation of fixed-point quantum searches in an Ising spin system.

Students attend Women Who Code Manila talks

Last 25 June 2017 SanD students Cleofe Ayang-ang, Paul Ang, and Ian Felismino attended the first event of the "How To Be You Po?" series of talks organized by Women Who Code Manila at the National Museum Planetarium. The series invites women from the science and technology industry to share their experiences and success stories to inspire others to pursue careers in science and technology. This first iteration of the series celebrates women who work in the space sciences and keynote talks were given by data scientist and astrophysicist Reinabelle Reyes and Diwata microsatellite engineer Kaye Verjel.
Photo credit: Reno Cerbolles 2017.

SanD caps midyear with successful SPP conference

SanD members presented a total of 18 papers covering several topics in theoretical and computational physics at the 35th Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference held in Cebu City last 6-10 June 2017. A total of 154 contributed papers and 15 invited talks were presented at the conference, which was attended by participants from ten countries including the Philippines. SanD hosted four invited speakers, Constantinos Constantinou, Manas Kulkarni, Shawn Pollard, and Raul Santos. SanD physicists Cristine Villagonzalo and Francis Paraan played important organizational roles as the SPP President and Secretary General, respectively. SanD alumnae Karla Belisario-Rivero and Marienette Vega also contributed much to the success of SPP 2017 as members of the Conference Secretariat.

SanD scholars present research at International DOST conference

DOST-SEI Director Josette Biyo and DOST-ASTHRDP scholars from the NIP SanD and Theoretical Physics research groups.

SanD DOST-ASTHRDP scholars Jan Philippe Sambo and Raymart Jay Canoy presented their work at the 2nd International Science Graduate Scholars' Conference at the PICC last 24-25 May 2017. This annual conference is organized by the Department of Science and Technology Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) to provide a venue for its scholars to share their thesis and dissertation research with other scholars, business and industry partners, and other stakeholders of the Accelerated Science and Technology Human Resource Development Program (ASTHRDP). In the conference poster session Jan presented his results on the time evolution of correlation functions in the ground state of a quenched XY model spin chain and Raymart presented his calculations of block purity in Kitaev chains with long-range interactions.

SanD student is best student presenter at Siam Physics Congress 2017

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. Amancio II Manceras presented his research on the advantage of genetic diversity in a Penna model of populations and Jan Fronimarc Villoria discussed his molecular dynamics simulations of the mechanical properties of copper-silver alloys.

8th Jagna International Workshop and Festschrift

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. Bernido, co-organized the workshop and lectured on the effects of spin-orbit coupling on the heat capacity of two-dimensional electron gases. SanD coordinator Francis Paraan was also invited to give a talk on simple ways to improve the performance of deep neural networks on classification tasks. Finally, PhD student Neris Sombillo presented a research poster on measurement-enhanced quantum searches.

SanD participates in triennial Asia Pacific Physics Conference 2016

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. Their research work is supervised by SanD physicist Francis Paraan, who also represented the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas in the triennial AAPPS meetings.

Alumna publishes epigenetics work in Cell

In a recent issue of Cell that 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. Louella is a staff scientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

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