I have always had a soft spot for animals while growing up. Our pet dogs have inspired me to pursue my graduate thesis about the impact of pets on our mental health and well-being. The fields of animal-assisted interventions and human-animal bond are growing here in the Philippines, and I wish to contribute more to its body of research. Hopefully, this can influence policy changes in institutions like universities when it comes to bringing pets to campus.

My interest in disaster mental health grew while I was working as a University Research Associate in a DOST-funded project under the Health Emergencies and Disasters Study Group of the National Institute of Health, University of the Philippines Manila. It opened my perspectives on considering the paradigm of emergency medicine in terms of protecting our mental health even before any disasters through disaster awareness and knowledge, preparedness and readiness, and adaptation.

The impact of arts on our mental health is one of the topics that I was highly interested in ever since I studied Psychology. As a self-taught artist, engaging in expressive arts has been cathartic for me and was a medium for me to express myself. Naturally, I was curious about its mechanisms and there is only a handful of local research that explored this. I also want to advocate for the appropriate use of the term, "art therapy" versus therapeutic expressive art activities.