Philipp Gotico is a Ph.D. candidate at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) with IRTELIS fellowship. He is a double-degree holder of BSc in Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, finishing as summa cum laude and receiving various distinctions on his academic and scientific efforts. He is a multiple-diploma holder as a SERP-Chem Erasmus Mundus International Master student getting a specialization in nanoscience and catalysis from University of Genova (Italy), a specialization in functionalized surface and sustainable development from University of Porto (Portugal), and a specialization in industrial and medical applications of radiation from University of Paris Sud (France).
His diverse technical skills made him an asset on various commitments focused on environmental sustainability. His undergraduate theses focused on solid waste management trying to minimize plastic waste from saturated dumpsites in the Philippines by valorizing them into practical brick and furniture materials. He had 2 years of engineering and management work on wastewater treatment plants at Manila Water Company, where he was part of the team to inaugurate the first solar-powered septage treatment plant in the Philippines cutting down significant energy cost from plant operations. He realized then that efforts for such environmental endeavors still need a sustainable energy input. As such, he became interested on the field of renewable energy specifically on the innovative solution of artificial photosynthesis. He is focused in going back to the basics of chemistry trying to understand how Nature has evolved and solved the continuous changes it experiences, and from here establish artificial mimics to hasten solutions for energy crisis and global warming. His ambition and prime motivation are to use sunlight and renewable sources such as water and CO2 to produce a clean energetic vector!