Gay Jane P. Perez is a Filipino physicist and environmental scientist whose research involves satellite observation of environmental conditions, and the applications of that data in agricultural planning. [1] She is a professor in the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology at the University of the Philippines Diliman, [2] and Deputy Director General of the Philippine Space Agency. [3] [4]
Perez is originally from Naga, Camarines Sur, where she attended a Catholic girls' school. [5] [6] She studied physics at the University of the Philippines Diliman, earning a bachelor's degree in 2003, a master's degree in 2005, and a Ph.D. in 2009. [2] She went to the US in 2010–2011 for postdoctoral research at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, working there on remote sensing. [1] [7]
Returning to the Philippines, she became the leader of the team that produced Diwata-1, the first microsatellite constructed in the Philippines. Her team also produced two later satellites, Maya-1 and Diwata-2, launched respectively in 2016, 2018, and 2019. [1] [4]
In 2022, she was elected to a four-year term as president of the Technical Commission on Education and Outreach of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, the first Filipino to lead the commission. [8]
Perez won the 2018 ASEAN-US Science Prize for Women, becoming the first Filipino to do so. [1] [3] [6] In 2019, she was both an awardee of The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service [3] and the Asian Scientist 100 by the Asian Scientist . [9] The National Academy of Science and Technology named her as their 2021 NAST Outstanding Young Scientist for Physical Sciences. [7]