Meet Harold Aquino, humanitarian and resilience engineer
1) What do you do?
I’d like to call what I do humanitarian and resilience engineering. I travel to disaster-stricken areas, work with and for communities, help them recover and rebuild from the impacts of disasters, and co-create with them knowledge and solutions towards developing resilience.
2) Where do you work?
I am on study leave from my post as Assistant Professor at the UP Diliman Institute of Civil Engineering and am currently a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Disaster Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction (CDRRR) of the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
3) Tell us about the photos!
[Top:] With my "squad" at Navala Village in Fiji after they took me around the village to inspect the housing damage caused by Cyclone Winston. #theworldismylab.
[Bottom:] Whenever I get saturated, music is my escape, be it singing or playing an instrument.
4) Tell us about your academic career path so far.
It was in New Jerusalem School (Elementary) that I developed an affinity for science. Philippine Science High School had gave me the depth of knowledge and equipped me with the essential skills to conduct scientific inquiries.
University of the Philippines Diliman broadened my horizons and taught me how we can use science to serve the people and change the world for the better.
Now at the University of Auckland, about to finish my Ph.D., I have seen and experienced the cutting edge and I’m now prepared to bring these experiences with me back home.
5) Anything else you’d like to share
I have my long-standing, deep hugot why I’m so into disaster research. I was standing on my mom’s office table on the 9th floor of SSS Main Office in Quezon City when there was this sudden strong shaking; my mom and I then hid under the table. That was my earliest childhood recollection and it was the 1990 Luzon earthquake that caused the collapse of the Hyatt Hotel. That's what continues to drive me to strive towards disaster resilience.
