BA boy.

Meet Maricor “Jing” Soriano:

1) What do you do?

I’m an applied physicist and I do research on video and image processing.  Give me an image or a video and my research team can extract more information from them. Since a lot of tasks require evaluating images, we’ve worked with marine scientists, museum researchers, public health agencies, sports people and other groups needing images to do their job.

2) Where do you work?

I’m a professor at the National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines and I head the Video and Image Processing research group (VIP).

3) Tell us about the photos!

[Top:] Rule No.1 in my lab is “Bawal magutom” so we find excuses to feast. This photo is a despedida for a former student going to Japan for Ph.D. studies.

[Bottom:] If you zoom in, you’ll see me riding a motorbike backwards. This picture was taken by a kite carrying a GoPro. We had to fly the kite, but there was no wind, so we had to run with the kite using a bike. I had to sit back-to-back with the driver to control the kite string. Sometimes, scientists need to be stuntmen to get data!

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far.

BS (1992), MS (1995), and Ph.D. (1997) degrees were earned from the National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines.

After Ph.D., I went on a two-year postdoc at the University of Oulu. I returned to UP in 2000 and started a sub-research group on image processing in 2004. In 2012, I got my own lab space. We hope to commercialize our research in 2017.

5) Anything else you’d like to share?

Meet BA Racoma:

1) What do you do?

I do numerical weather prediction modeling for selected case studies to quantify the effects of different parameters, specifically, the topography of the Philippines. I also maintain the Percent Chance of Rain, Radar, Himawari, and GSMAP data in Project NOAH. I automated the processing of these data and whenever new data comes along, I automate them as well.

2) Where do you work?

I work in Project NOAH-ClimateX based in the National Institute of Geological Sciences.

3) Tell us about the photos!

[Top:] After 5 years, I finally presented my master’s thesis proposal! My master’s thesis discusses the effect of topography on selected Tropical Cyclones in the Philippines.

[Bottom:] I was in Kyoto, Japan for KAGI21: International Spring School on the Active Geosphere. In the Spring School they discuss the importance of interdisciplinary research. The Earth is a very dynamic system, from the core, to the crust, to the atmosphere, and finally, to space. Our Earth would not exist if not for the interactions between these components.

Although I just remembered the second photo should be informal. So… I was out on a photowalk in Japan. Yeah, let’s go with that. ;)

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far.

I went to Ateneo Grade School and Ateneo High School, then got my BS Applied Physics at UP Diliman. Currently finishing my MS Geology in UP Diliman as well.

5) Anything else you want to share?