Category: STEM Advocacy

GSA Summit

Mentors are invited for the Annual Global Science Alliance (GSA) Summit in The New York Academy of Sciences in New York for the annual gathering of young scientists, international researchers, mentors, mentees and their parents or guardians. It is held every July and it was on its third year.

I went to New York to attend the Summit last July 24 -26. The highlight of the event was the gathering of the future STEM leaders across the globe, showcasing their projects and achievement from the different mentoring programs of the academy. I also met notable persons from the academy especially those program managers who handles the GSA and the Mentoring programs.


While the mentees were having their activities, the mentors were also invited a talk by Josh Henkin.

On the third day the mentees were also awarded with their winning projects.

I was glad that there was a lot of young scientist from my countries whom I met during the summit. There were seven from young Filipinos who attended the event.

For more information about the mentoring program please check NYAS Mentorship.

NYAS Mentorship

I submitted my application in September of 2018 to the website of The New York Academy of Sciences. I was reminded of completing the application by an email in which I didn’t finish. The mentorship is in cooperation with the United Technologies Corporation. One of the qualifications of being a mentor is graduate students, postdocs or professionals working in STEM-related fields with expertise in green buildings and sustainability or related topic area. Other criteria are to be passionate about engaging and inspiring the next generation of STEM innovators.
I was able to complete the application and I was scheduled for an interview by another mentor in October. After the interview, my background was checked by a vendor to provide a secure and comfortable mentoring environment to the NYAS program. It took 3 weeks to finally be cleared of the background check.


In the first week of November, I was admitted to the program. I was given access to the portal. We were then given a welcome package on how to use the portal and what are the reminders of being a mentor.
I received an email that I was matched with my mentee in the second week of December. My mentee is budding 17 years old girl from Bulgaria who wants to be a Chemical Engineer. I was matched with her because I graduated with BS Chemistry in college.
We were introduced and our first meeting was in the same week. She’s a very pretty girl who is active in her hometown in different science-related activities and also with her advocacy with her community as one of the young leaders. She planned to study in a different country and she’s learning French.
There are four modules with the STEM U that will also help and guide the young generation and it was distributed for the whole school year. They are an interactive module that helps the mentee with their personality and personal goals going to STEM.
At the end of the school year, both mentees and mentors will receive their certification in being a part o the program.
For more details about the mentoring programs, you can check the website www.nyas.org

Trends in Biobank and Genetics

A symposium with a title of “Trends in Biobank and Genetics” was conducted last 18th of July in the Shangri-La EDSA in Mandaluyong City. It was a seminar of Technidata in collaboration with St. Luke’s Medical Center Human Cancer Biobank.

The symposium was attended by the different Hospitals both private and government hospitals and research institutions. researchers, medical technologists, doctors and scientists took part in the seminar. The rain was pouring heavily in the morning and the traffic going to the hotel was really bad, but luckily the turn out of the participants was really high.
The first part was the introduction of the Technidata corporate profile by the General Manager, Ronan Mage. The second part was the Future in Cancer Genomics and Cancer Biobank by Dr. Daphne Ang of St. Luke’s Medical Center.  After the very highly anticipated talk of Dr. Ang was a snack break.

The third part was about TDGenetics of Technidata by Kristine Agustin, the Business Development Manager of Technidata before they proceed to the lunch break. After lunch, Carlo Fernandez, Technidata’s Senior Service Engineer talked about TDBiobank and had a demo. The last part of the seminar was a talk by Loraine Kay Cabral of St. Luke’s Medical Center.

The best part of the symposium was the sharing of knowledge and ideas with regards to biobank issues related to the industry and the problems that arise from the different laboratories on how to set up the facilities. The biobank is still new in the Philippines. There are many hospitals and researches who want to put up their biobank lab to preserve the different specimens to help researchers.