Ilonggo wins Hans Kaunitz Award in USA
A true-blooded Ilonggo is a recipient of this year’s Hans Kaunitz Award. Gerard Dumancas, a 2005 BS in Chemistry cum laude graduate from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV), won the prestigious award given by the Northeast Chapter of the USA section annually.
The 2010 Hans Kaunitz Award consisted of a $1,000 honorarium with certificate, plus $500 towards travel expenses to the 101st AOCS Meeting & Expo, held this year in Phoenix, Arizona. Individuals applying must be graduate students at any institute of higher learning within the geographical boundaries of the United States and be actively performing research towards a Masters or Doctorate degree. Additionally, the candidate must be in good academic standing, be involved in research dealing with fats, oils, protein co-products, and/or surfactants, and interested in the areas of science and technology fostered by the AOCS.
Dumancas plans to graduate from Oklahoma State University in the summer of 2012 with a Ph.D. in Chemistry.
His thesis back in college at UPV was titled “N-Hexane Extractable Material in Iloilo River Sediments”. This research involved the soxhlet extraction of oils and grease in a river’s sediment and characterization of the aldehydes and ketones by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). That same year, he won the 2005 International Eco-Minds Pathfinder Award in Asia-Pacific for his research plan involving the utilization of cottonseed oil wastes as diesel replacement fuel. He joined the AOCS and the Analytical Division in 2007.
In 2009, he won the American Oil Chemists Society’s Analytical Division Student Award for Excellence in Analytical Chemistry Research. In May 2010, Dumancas was awarded the 2010 AOCS Honored Student Award for outstanding research, academics and leadership involvement. Over the past several years, Dumancas has won numerous awards, has received countless accolades, published several papers and helped write several book chapters.
Dumancas’ research advisor at Oklahoma State University is Dr. Neil Purdie.
His future plans include finding a postdoctoral fellowship in the areas of chemometrics and proteomics and consequently obtain a job in a community college as an instructor or as an assistant professor.