THE HEADS of the UST Research Center for Social Sciences and Education (RCSSED) have received awards for their Ph.D. research.
Assoc. Prof. Jeremaiah Opiniano, director of the RCSSED, won the 2024 Dissertation Award from the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA), which recognizes a “beginning scholar” with an “outstanding contribution” to mixed-methods research.
Opiniano received the award for his doctoral project, “Overseas Remittances and Rural Hometown Investing: Towards an Understanding of the Migration-and-Local Development Nexus.”
The same dissertation won him the John Lewis Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Doctoral Research in Geography from the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia in 2021.
A former Varsitarian sports editor, Opiniano completed his postgraduate studies in human geography at the University of Adelaide in Australia in 2021.
He teaches thesis courses and migration reporting in the journalism program of the Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) and at the UST Graduate School.
Opiniano also runs the non-profit think thank Institute for Migration and Development Issues, a group focused on the phenomenon of international migration.
Meanwhile, RCSSED Asst. Director Pia Tenedero bagged the Virginia A. Miralao Excellence in Research Award (VAMERA) given by the Philippine Social Science Council for her book, “Communication that Counts: Language Practice and Ideology in Globalized Accounting.”
Published after she obtained her doctorate in linguistics from Macquarie University in Australia in 2021, the project looks into dominant views about communication, especially in the field of accounting.
The VAMERA award is given to authors of a published journal article, book chapter, or book to encourage young scholars below 45 years old to “pursue original and meaningful research,” the RCSSED said.
Tenedero is a faculty member of the Department of English in Artlets who had served as the RCSSED lead person for language studies. She is also an honorary research fellow at the Macquarie University’s linguistics department.
The RCSSED is the social science research arm of UST, named an outstanding research institution in the country by the National Research Council of the Philippines in February.
