Heads of Offices Under the OVPAA
Kyung Min Bae, Ph.D.
Director, UP Korea Research Center
Kyung Min Bae, Ph.D. is Assistant Professorial Fellow at UP Department of Linguistics where she has been teaching since 2010. She obtained her Ph.D. at UP College of Education in July 2020 with her dissertation entitled “Professional Identity of Non-native Teachers of Korean as a Foreign Language as Basis for a KFL Teacher Education Program Framework”. Dr. Bae has been contributing to the development of Korean language education in the Philippines by training Korean language students and in-service teachers. She is also actively engaging in academic initiatives in promoting Korean Studies in the Philippines.
Edna E.A. Co, Ph.D.
Director, UP CIFAL Philippines
Dr. Edna E.A. Co is a professor of Public Administration at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), where she served as Dean from 2010 to 2013. She was a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester and Visiting Lecturer at the City University of Hong Kong, Department of Social and Public Administration. Dr. Co serves as Advisory Council member of the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines and is a consultant to several national and international development organizations and international political foundations. She has authored works on governance, democracy and democracy assessment, citizen participation, and policy reform.
Jose Neil C. Garcia, Ph.D.
Director, UP Press
J. Neil C. Garcia teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, where he serves as Director of the University Press and a Fellow for Poetry in the Institute of Creative Writing. He is the author of numerous poetry collections and works in literary and cultural criticism. Between 1994 and 2014, he coedited the famous Ladlad series of Philippine gay writing. Other important anthologies that he edited are Aura: the Gay theme in Philippine Fiction in English, published in 2012, Bright Sign, Bright Age: Critical Essays in Philippines Studies, 2017, and the forthcoming Busilak: New LGBTQ Poetry from the Philippines. He is the director for the Philippines of Project GlobalGRACE: Global Gender and Cultures of Equality, worldwide research and arts consortium sponsored by the Research Councils of the United Kingdom and Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently at work on “Likha,” his seventh poetry book.
Cynthia Palmes-Saloma, Ph.D.
Director, Philippine Genome Center
On 15 August 2017, the University of the Philippines Board of Regents approved the appointment of Dr. Cynthia Palmes-Saloma as the Executive Director of the Philippine Genome Center (PGC).
Dr. Saloma was the project leader behind the establishment of the DNA Sequencing Core Facility (DSCF) of PGC making her one of the pioneers of the executive committee. The youngest among the four (4) founding ‘mothers/marias’ of PGC, Dr. Saloma joined Dr. Amelia P. Guevara, Dr. Gisela P. Concepcion and Dr. Carmencita D. Padilla in brainstorming, formulating strategies, inspecting international genome institutes in order to create and establish the Philippine Genome Center in 2009. Since then she has served as PGC’s program director for DSCF until August 2016.
She finished her bachelor of science degree in Fisheries from the University of Philippines Visayas with magna cum laude honors in 1987. Afterwards she took a bachelor of science degree in Molecular Biology in Nagoya University, Japan in 1993. Two years after she received her master’s degree in Medical Science from Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine. Then in 1998, Dr. Saloma got her doctor of science in physiology from Osaka University Graduate School of Science.
Concurrent to her PGC appointment, she is also a Professor 9 on her second term as director of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB) in UP Diliman. She is also the principal investigator and head of NIMBB’s Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory. Dr. Saloma is also the Chair of the UP Diliman Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. She is married to former UP Diliman Chancellor Caesar P. Saloma and they have two daughters, Cristina and Carmel.
Francisco N. de los Reyes
Director, Office of Admissions
Prof. Francisco N. de los Reyes teaches at the undergraduate and graduate degree programs of the UP School of Statistics (UPSS) where he obtained his B.S. (Statistics) and M.S. (Statistics) degrees. His interests are in statistical quality control, spatial statistics and multivariate theory. He was formerly Director for Undergraduate Studies, Director for Extension Services and College Secretary at the UPSS.
Prof. de los Reyes is a published academic and was a statistician for various researches in government, industry, academe and training institutions. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Societies for academic excellence and Grand Champion of the 2017 SAS Philippines Analytics Competition (Faculty Division). He was awarded the Sunlife Brilliance Professorial Chair for Statistics in December 2017 and the UP Centennial Professorial Chair in 2020. Prof. de los Reyes was awarded the Gawad Tsanselor sa Natatanging Guro 2020. He was appointed Director of the Office of Admissions effective 1 July 2020.
Luis G. Sison, Ph.D.
Director, Technology Transfer and Business Development Office
Luis Sison is a professor at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman, Director of the UP System Technology Transfer and Business Development Office, and the Program Leader of the UPSCALE Innovation Hub. He was Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development of UP Diliman from 2006 to 2011 during which he established the Technology Transfer Office. He was awarded the Gawad Pangulo for Progressive Teaching and Learning by UP in 2015, and his course on innovation and technopreneurship got the Silver Award for Teaching Delivery at the 2016 Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards. He was a visiting researcher at the University of California Berkeley as a Banatao Fellow. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. EE degree from Purdue University and a B.S. EE degree from UP Diliman. His research interests are biomedical instrumentation and education technology.
Nathalie Lourdes A. Verceles, D.S.D.
Director, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies
Luis Sison is a professor at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman, Director of the UP System Technology Transfer and Business Development Office, and the Program Leader of the UPSCALE Innovation Hub. He was Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development of UP Diliman from 2006 to 2011 during which he established the Technology Transfer Office. He was awarded the Gawad Pangulo for Progressive Teaching and Learning by UP in 2015, and his course on innovation and technopreneurship got the Silver Award for Teaching Delivery at the 2016 Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards. He was a visiting researcher at the University of California Berkeley as a Banatao Fellow. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. EE degree from Purdue University and a B.S. EE degree from UP Diliman. His research interests are biomedical instrumentation and education technology.
Teresa E. Tadem, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Center for Integrative and Development Studies
Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem is Executive Director, Center for Integrative and Development Studies, University of the Philippines (UP CIDS) and Professor of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). She obtained her Ph.D. in Politics and Public Administration from The University of Hong Kong in 1997. Other administrative positions she held were as Director, Third World Studies Center, Chair, Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman and UP CIDS Deputy Director for Research and Monitoring, 1997-2000. Professor Tadem was also President of the Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA), 2011-2013 and Vice-President of the Philippine Social Science Council (PSSC), 2012-2014. Her academic awards include the 2018 NRCP Achievement Awardee for the Social Sciences (Division VIII); Phi Kappa Phi 85th Anniversary Awardees for Excellence, January 16, 2019; Conferred the UP Scientific Productivity Award: UP Scientist II by the UP Board of Regents, 2018 and the Natatanging Guro sa 2009 Gawad Tsanselor Award (2009 Most Outstanding Teacher Chancellor Award), UP Diliman. Professor Tadem was also a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University from April-October 2010 and Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University, from November 2010 to March 2011.
