PhilVE Research Team

Marcial Pua Jr.
Website Administrator

Marcial Pua Jr. is a software engineer specializing in web and mobile applications development. He brings to the team his experience in building real-estate, insurance and banking web applications. He has built free mobile apps catered for fellow Filipinos and has now garnered a total of 6M downloads. He currently owns Pua Software Development Services.

Regina P. Berba, MD, MSc
Principal Investigator

Dr. Regina “Nina” Berba is a multi-awarded infectious disease expert. Dr. Berba had served as the chair of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) Hospital Infection Control Unit (HICU), innovating many programs to reduce risk for healthcare associated infections. She led the crafting of the COVID-19 Management Protocols that ensured the safety of frontline health workers. Her research work is mostly on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, tuberculosis, healthcare associated infections, and HIV. She serves as Professor 3 at the University of the Philippines Manila College of Medicine.

Sources: upmas.org | spheres.dost.gov.ph

Eva Maria C. Cutiongco-de la Paz, MD
Co-Investigator

Dr. Eva Maria Cutiongco-de la Paz is the current executive director of the National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila. She was a research fellow at the Molecular Genetics International Center for Medical Research at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. She further trained for her subspeciality at the Clinical Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include genetics of monogenic and complex genetic conditions among Filipinos such as birth defects, cancer, diabetes mellitus, and X-linked Dystonia Parkinsonism.

Source: pgc.up.edu.ph

Marissa M. Alejandria, MD, MSc
Co-Investigator

Dr. Marissa Alejandria is a distinguished clinician-researcher, mentor, and leader in the field of clinical epidemiology and infectious diseases. She is a professor of clinical epidemiology and infectious diseases at the UP College of Medicine and Philippine General Hospital. She is concurrently the director of the Institute of Clinical Epidemiology of the National Institutes of Health – UP Manila, and Associate Dean for Research at the UP College of Medicine. Her research portfolio spans a broad range of infectious diseases from tuberculosis, HIV, sepsis, antimicrobial resistance, leptospirosis, and most recently, COVID-19. Dr. Alejandria’s expertise is on clinical epidemiologic research, health systems research, healthcare quality improvement research, clinical trials, systematic reviews, and clinical practice guideline development.

Source: reportinternational.org

Arturo Ongkeko Jr.
Project Manager – National Coordinating Team

Mr. Art Ongkeko is a Fulbright-CHED Fellow of MS Health Informatics at Rutgers University. Combining expertise as a nurse and health informatics, Mr. Ongkeko has over a decade of experience designing digital health interventions. His professional roles also include health-IT project management and research, collaborating with various development agencies and national and local health systems stakeholders. He has several academic contributions in peer-reviewed journals on digital health and social innovations in health. He is the co-lead of the Social Innovation in Health Initiative Secretariat and the SIHI Philippines Hub. Mr. Ongkeko is also the co-founder and CEO of a start-up called Pivotal Peak, and his primary focus is on expanding UP Manila’s electronic medical record system. His goal is to contribute to improving health information management systems in the Philippines, hoping that it will lead to better health and a higher quality of life for Filipinos.

Raymond Francis Sarmiento, MD

A seasoned physician-scientist, Dr. Raymond Francis Sarmiento is the immediate past director of the National Telehealth Center at the National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila. He is the current national chairperson of HL7 Philippines, the official country affiliate of the international standards body HL7 International. He completed his public health informatics fellowship at the Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2014 to 2016. Prior to that, he completed his medical informatics fellowship at the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications at the National Library of Medicine, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 2012 to 2014.

Sources: hta.dost.gov.ph | sil-asia.org

Manuel O. Gaspar

Mr. Manu Gaspar is passionate about health technology and human rights. His work at the University of the Philippines Manila focuses on healthcare access and systems improvement through telehealth. His recent work includes collaborating with colleagues from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and Hanoi Vietnam in designing a patient-centered primary care strengthening model for hepatitis in the Philippines. He also plays a significant role in the Philippine Vaccine Effectiveness project as he has been providing data management and visual analytic support to a surveillance project estimating the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines used in the Philippines. His remarkable passion for human rights propels him to spend his free time volunteering for Amnesty International. In 2021, he supported the committee in nominating talented volunteers to the organization’s international board and other global governance committees in the annual election cycle.

Jean Francis Barcena
Communications Head

Ms. Jean Barcena is a development communication practitioner and has extensive experience in launching communication campaigns for nonprofits and research institutions. In 2018, she joined the Social Innovation in Health Initiative and has been part of the SIHI Secretariat since 2020 as its communications coordinator. She obtained her master’s degree in media studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and has training in health promotion and social media marketing. Her communication background includes health communication, online news media work, advocacy for non-government organizations, and teaching media and communication courses.

Elaine Llarena, PhD
Communication Consultant

Assistant Professor Elaine Llarena is a full-time faculty member of the Department of Science Communication, College of Development Communication at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). A science and risk communication expert, she has vast experiences in project and research management as a national communication specialist as well as a communication consultant for various international/regional non-government organizations. She has led projects in organizations such as the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, World Society for the Protection of Animals, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In November 2020, she completed her dissertation titled “An integrated communication approach to address zoonotic diseases” and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (by Research) at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. Alongside academic duties, Dr. Llarena is part of the Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Program Office Technical Working Committee on Information, Education, and Communication (IEC), and the UPLB Zoonoses Center as leader of the Communication and Knowledge Management Division.

Sources: facebook.com | linkedin.com | zoonoses.uplb.edu.ph

Amen Quizon-Letana
Communications Assistant

Amen received her bachelor’s degree with a double major in language and literature from the University of the Philippines Baguio, and later gained experience in business and resource development, project management, and educational technology from nonprofit and corporate settings. She is working on her master’s thesis entitled “Evaluation of the Plan of Action to Implement the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Disaster Health Management (2019-2025): A glimpse on One Health Initiative in ASEAN,” towards obtaining the degree of Master of ASEAN Studies at the University of the Philippines Open University. An advocate of organizational accountability, Amen is passionate about helping organizations deliver better outcomes through appropriate organizational paradigm and communication.

Kim Cochon, RND, MSPH, PhD

Assistant Professor Kim L. Cochon teaches at the Biostatistics in the College of Public Health, and is a panel member of the University of the Philippines Ethics Review Board (Panel 5B). Her expertise allows her to serve as a statistical/technical consultant to projects of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), EpiMetrics Inc., Health Futures Foundation Inc., Mundipharma Distribution GmbH (Philippine Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Philippines) Inc., Max’s Group of Companies, and the Philippine Department of Health. Her research interests include epidemiologic and biostatistical methods, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, health systems, health economics, maternal and child health, mental health, and other priority diseases in the Philippines.

Amiel Nazer Bermudez, MD, MPH, PhD

Dr. Amiel Bermudez is an associate professor of epidemiology at the College of Public Health of the University of the Philippines Manila. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology degree in 2024 from the Department of Epidemiology and the Center for Epidemiological Research at the School of Public Health of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA as a US National Institutes of Health – Fogarty International Center fellow. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree under the Integrated Liberal Arts and Medicine (INTARMED) Program from the UP College of Medicine in 2009, and his Master of Public Health degree in 2014 from the UP College of Public Health. Dr. Bermudez’ substantive research interests include infectious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, mental health, health disparities, women’s health, and the health of sexual and gender minority populations. His methodological interests and expertise include modern epidemiologic methods, quantitative causal inference methods, methods in meta-analysis, pharmacoepidemiologic methods, and health services research methods.

Cleo Credo

Cleo Credo is a Google Developer Expert for Firebase. Her work focuses mainly on full stack web engineering using Python and JavaScript as well as systems architecture design, cloud computing, and machine learning.

Jenny Lynn Carigma
Science Communicator

Ms. Jen Carigma is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Development Communication, majoring in Science Communication at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. She has been a development communication practitioner for more than a decade and served in profit, non-profit, and research institutions. She co-authored some publications, the latest of which is a research on small-crater lake governance of the Center for Strategic Planning and Policy Studies, College of Public Affairs and Development, University of the Philippines Los Banos. This paper won second place in the Search for Outstanding in Extension Research Paper Award during the 2023 Philippine Extension and Advisory Services Network, Inc. (PhilEASNet). Her interests and experiences include project management for non-profit initiatives, information processing and packaging for various users, technical communication, training material design, search engine optimization writing, and knowledge management.

Venus Oliva Cloma-Rosales, MD, MPH, ME

Dr. Venus Oliva Cloma-Rosales is a trained pediatrician and is a graduate of Master in Public Health at the National University of Singapore. She began her research practice upon returning to Manila and founded 101 Health Research in 2014. The demand for her expertise in research methods and clinical biostatistics continuously increased as she rendered consultations, protocol preparations, data analysis, and even research lectures to various hospitals. During the pandemic, her company became a one-stop shop for all things health research within the Philippine medical community, public health circles, and even regional clinical industries.

Source: 101healthresearch.com