Outstanding PSHS alumni awardees announced

Twelve outstanding alumni of the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) will be bestowed the Gawad Lagablab award during rites on Nov. 19 at the Manila Hotel, the PSHS National Alumni Association awards committee chair Irene Reyes-Santos, M.D. announced on Wednesday. The PSHS is a specialized public high school system and an attached agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). PSHS students are scholars because they are gifted in the sciences and mathematics. The Gawad Lagablab awards are given every 3 years to recognize PSHS alumni excellence in their chosen fields of expertise and contribution to national development. This year's batch is the seventh. Among the awardees are Florecita Fernandez (Batch ’69), for food research and technology; Danilo Silvestre (’74) for architecture and urban planning; Anna Bayle (’74), for international fashion; Benita Padilla (’75), for medicine-nephrology; Rod Franco (76), for business and industry-infrastructure development; Miriam Coronel Ferrer (’77), for peace advocacy and Elpidio Cesar Nadala (’78), for international research – microbiology, virology. Also recognized were Cymbeline Tancongco Culiat (’78), genetics and genomics; Cristi Marie Nozawa (’80), biodiversity conservation; Jose Maria Ochave (’81), business and industry – medical health; Leo Anthony Celi (’83), for critical care medicine and biomedical informatics; and Francis de los Reyes III (’86), for environmental engineering and biotechnology. Coronel-Ferrer, a UP political science professor, is a member of the government negotiating panel for talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Padilla is part of the National Kidney Institute’s Kidney Transplant Task Force. Silvestre was dean of the University of the Philippines College of Architecture. Nozawa is vice-chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas and director of BirdLife Asia. De los Reyes, an engineering professor at the North Carolina State University, is a 2008 Balik-Scientist awardee. Tancongco-Culiat is a lead researcher of NellOne Therapeutics Inc., a regenerative medicine company. Celi, an infectious diseases specialist, pioneered in setting up a cellphone-based information system to improve quality of care in resource-poor settings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nadala co-founded an award winning biotech company in Silicon Valley, while Bayle is a New York-based international fashion model. Those in the corporate sector are Fernandez, who is vice-president of Unilever/RFM Conglomerate, and Ochave, senior vice-president of Unilab Laboratories, Inc.. Franco is CEO of the Manila North Tollways Corporation. — MRT/ELR, GMA News