Senior Teacher Dino Tordesillas, PhD, a faculty member of the Senior High School’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strand and an academic researcher of the Research Center for the Natural Applied Sciences, was elected to a yearlong term as President of the Philippine Society for Development Biology (PSDB).
According to Tordesillas, his yearlong term will be focused on leading the society’s transition from the pandemic “hopefully to its tail end.” The resumption of in-person activities is something Tordesillas is looking forward to, but the annual webinar series and master classes the PSDB sponsors will continue. An innovation they will work on this year is the “Dev Bio Caravan,” “with the goal to reach developmental biology researchers, instructors and students in other parts of the country.” Tordesillas likewise underscored the goal of PSDB to provide a Filipino context to development biology. “Ang salin ng salitang “development” sa Filipino ay paglilinang, na may kinalaman sa salitang pag-unlad. Nawa’y sa pag-aaral natin ng paglilinang, tuloy din ang pag-unlad ng ating kaalaman sa ating espesye at sa mundong ating ginagalawan,” Tordesillas said in an interview with the Communications Bureau.
The Philippine Society for Development Biology (PSDB) aims to elevate the standards of biological studies in the country to help address key scientific problems and the Society believes that this can be achieved through the promotion of best practices of scientific teaching and research. PSDB also encourages cooperative and multidisciplinary research undertakings among its members, so we try our best to provide platforms for dissemination of recent scientific advancements, techniques, and research accomplishments. According to Tordesillas, the leadership wants “PSDB to become a medium for networking among our members, scientists, and educators in the field of Developmental Biology.”
In the past, PSDB included in its board of trustees Biological Sciences faculty members Alicia Ely J. Pagulayan, MSc and Emerita Simeon, PhD (retired).