Ateneo Math faculty members win young scientist awards from International Union of Crystallography

Kurt Anthony de los Santos and Jim Ralphealo Mijares, instructors in the Ateneo de Manila University Department of Mathematics, were named as two of the recipients of the Young Scientist Award given by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) during the 16th International Conference on Quasicrystals (ICQ) held from 22 to 27 June 2025 at the National College of Chemical Industries (ENSIC) in Nancy, France.

The award is given by the IUCr, via the decision of the scientific committee of the ICQ, to graduate students, post-graduate students, or post-doctoral fellows with a maximum age of 30. 

This is not the first time an Atenean has won this award. Dr Bryan Ceasar Felipe of the Central Luzon State University and Dr Luis S Silvestre of Ateneo de Manila, both PhD Math alumni of the school, and Dr Neil Mañibo of Bielefeld University, who finished his MS Math at Ateneo, won the IUCr Young Scientist Award in the 15th ICQ held at Tel-Aviv in Israel last 2021.

Mr Mijares and Mr de los Santos presented in the poster exhibitions of the ICQ. Mr Mijares presented a study entitled, “On the Spectrum of the Random Fibonacci Direct Product Variation”. This study was made in collaboration with his advisers Dr Eden Delight Miro and Dr Luis S Silvestre, Jr.

Mr de los Santos presented his study, “Symmetries of a Symbolic Dynamical System Arising from a Biquadratic Number Field,” which aimed to explain some actions that occur on examples of a large mathematical object such as a number field. His advisers were Dr Mark L Loyola and Dr Eden Delight Miro.

Both studies are part of the extended methods they developed during the thesis part of their Masters studies. 

Oral Presentation

On the fourth day of the conference, Dr Eden Delight Miro gave a talk on the collaborative works on random substitutions entitled, “Complex dynamical systems arising from random substitutions.” 

This work was done with Dr Silvestre, Mr Mijares, and Dr Felipe. 

The collective work aimed to discuss certain dynamical properties among larger families of random substitutions, an object of interest recently in the field of aperiodic order.

The ICQ was attended by over 100 scientists from more than 15 countries around the world. Aside from the mathematics of aperiodic order, researchers doing work on materials science, crystallography, and tiling theory were present in the conference.

The participation of this small contingent of the Ateneo in the ICQ furthers its efforts to collaborate with global partners in the pursuit of research.

Their participation was funded under the University Research and Creative Works framework, the Department of Mathematics, and the National Research Council of the Philippines - Department of Science and Technology.

The 17th ICQ is slated for 2028 and will be held in Japan.