Meet Philippines’ first homegrown gravitational physicist

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a new milestone that we all need to celebrate — the Philippines now has its first ever gravitational physicist!

Reginald Christian Bernardo unofficially became the first homegrown gravitational physicist after his dissertation on alternative theories of gravity was approved by the University of the Philippines National Institute of Physics (NIP).

First homegrown gravitational physicist is from UP

Yesterday, may 27, UP NIP announced the great news on Facebook,  sharing that Reginald successfully defended his dissertation, “Compact Objects, Cosmologies, and Gravitational Perturbations in Scalar-Tensor Theories of Gravity,” during his defense last Friday via Zoom teleconference, which was streamed live on YouTube.

Of course, his advisors are proud of his achievement as the first-ever homegrown gravitational physicist.

“It’s a proud moment for everyone. [We can all draw inspiration] from Reggie’s example, that it is possible to respectably engage the larger gravity community in spite of our well-known disadvantages and relative isolation,” Reginald’s advisor Dr. Ian Vega shared with Scientia, UP Diliman College of Science’s official student publication.

“Finally, the proud intellectual tradition [of gravitational physics] from Newton and Einstein … now also branches through the Philippines too,” he added.

Meanwhile, Reginald will officially be a certified doctor after officials sign his documents.