Dr. Ricardo del Rosario obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from NC State University. After a one-year postdoc at the Center for Research in Scientific Computation at NC State University on the modeling and optimal control of smart material structures, he spent 6 years as an Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics, University of the Philippines Diliman.

He continued to pursue his interests on the mathematical of modeling of biological systems at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPI) in Germany, where he worked on modeling the bioenergetics and phototaxis of an archaeon that lives in extremely salty environment, Halobacterium salinarum. He also worked on mathematical models of metabolic and signal transduction systems at MPI. After 3 and a half years in Germany, he transitioned to genomics and computational biology at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS). At GIS, he worked on two main projects; in the first project, he used comparative genomics to determine primate-specific evolutionary constrained regions in the human genome to help understand the rise of hallmark primate traits. In the second project, worked on determining the function of non-coding regions of the human genome and to this end he worked on a method called the genotype-independent signal correlation and imbalance (GSCI) test to detect histone-acetylation quantitative trait loci. The GSCI method has been used in studies that include autism spectrum disorder and tuberculosis.

Since 2015, Dr. del Rosario has been a senior computational biologist at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. At the Broad Institute, he leads the genetics and genomics analysis of marmosets. Marmosets are new world monkeys and are recently gaining popularity as a model to understand psychiatric disorders.

Dr. del Rosario will provide a quick tour of some of his works using computational biology to analyze genomic data, and how the results could help answer biological questions.

Dr. Rafaelita "Fita" M. Aldaba is Undersecretary for Competitiveness and Innovation of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). She fulfills a key role in the formulation and implementation of the Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy (i3S), which puts innovation at the heart of the country’s new industrial policy.

She is leading DTI’s initiatives in preparing industries for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital transformation, establishing Regional Inclusive Innovation Centers (RIICs), and growing a robust startup ecosystem in the country. Undersecretary Aldaba is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Philippine Board of Investments (BOI).

A researcher turned policymaker, Dr. Aldaba was Senior Research Fellow and Acting Vice-President of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies. She has extensive research experience, authored various publications on development issues, and conceptualized and managed research projects with various international organizations, including The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the United States Agency for International Development.

Dr. Aldaba will talk about the National AI Roadmap and Industry 4.0 in the Philippines.