ILLUSTRATIONS BY: Jan-Daniel S. Belmonte and Czarina B. Dycaico

Reinabelle Reyes

Dr. Reinabelle Reyes, a Filipina astrophysicist, is known as the woman who was part of the team that helped prove Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Education: BS Physics, Ateneo de Manila University; PhD in Astrophyics, Princeton University.

Profession: Astrophysicist

Significant Accomplishment: Reyes was also awarded the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for discovering the largest number of “obscured quasars,” also known as supermassive black holes that can be located in the centers of galaxies.

Blaise Kuo Tiong

The scientist of today is arguably very different from the scientist from even just ten years ago, and Blaise Kuo Tiong is proof of it.

Education: BS Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles

Profession: Computer scientist

Significant Accomplishment: Currently based in the IceCube, a research station in Antarctica, Kuo Tiong’s work deals not with the visible, but with the invisible: Neutrinos—tiny, uncharged subatomic particles which are still not completely understood by scientists.

Katherine Luzuriaga

Featured in this year’s Time 100, Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga is known as one-third of a team of scientists responsible for successfully curing an HIV-positive infant

Education: SB and SM, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; MD, Tufts University School of Medicine

Profession: Dr. Luzuriaga is an allergist at the University of Massachusetts and has dedicated 20 years to “patient-oriented research focused on mother-to-child transmission of HIV.”

Significant Accomplishment: Successfully cured an infant with HIV

Awards received: Elizabeth Glaser Science Award, Research Scholar Award, Featured in the Time 100 in 2013

Raymundo Punongbayan

As director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) from 1983 to 1992, Dr. Punongbayan is best known for his accurate prediction and exceptional handling of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Education: BS Geology, University of the Philippines, Diliman; PhD in Geology, University of Colorado

Profession: Geologist/Volcanologist

Significant Accomplishment: Accurately predicted 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo

Awards received: UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction (2001), Sergy Soloviev Medal of European Geological Society (2003)

Arturo Alcaraz

Today, geothermal power plants supply a substantial part of the nation’s power at a fraction of the pollution of conventional fossil fuel plants, and Dr. Arturo Alcaraz is to thank for it.

Education: BS Mining Engineering, Mapua Institute of Technology

Profession: Geologist

Significant Accomplishment: Pioneered development of geothermal power plants in the Philippines and opened the Philippines’ first geothermal plant in 1977 in Leyte

Awards received: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service (1982), IBM Science and Technology Award (1985)