This Filipino physicist brings outer space closer to home

When Dr. Gay Jane Perez was a kid, she never thought that she would grow up to be a decorated physicist, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a leader in the space economy, as well as the director general of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA). “Although much, much younger, I did think about being an astronaut. But not so seriously, just in a way that was, ‘Oh! It would be cool to be an astronaut! I want to be an astronaut.’ But what course would you take to be an astronaut? There’s no Filipino astronaut,” she shared. “So it’s just one of those things that will cross your mind but you don’t have a pathway to get it.” Perez didn’t even attend a science high school. As a student of the Universidad de Santa Isabel in Naga City, she grew up seeing lawyers, accountants, and doctors at career fairs, not scientists. Her school also focused on developing well-rounded leaders, writers, and public speakers. Even if she was an active student leader herself, she felt like those skills were her weaknesses, so she gravitated to math instead of words. While her friends were winning extemporaneous speaking competitions, she was winning math olympiads. She chose to major in physics — the science with the most math, she thought then — at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman after the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) offered a scholarship and incentivized the science course. But while her strength in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) gave her an edge among her high school classmates, all her college peers came from science high schools. She struggled to keep up after everything she knew about physics was covered in the first week. To her surprise, her perceived weaknesses became her strengths. While applying for a prestigious research lab in her third year of college, her lecture and presentation on the science behind the animation technology of Toy Story captured the attention of her audience. “Before me, people were chatting during the other presentations. But when I started giving my talk, they all started listening, including the head of the lab, Dr. Caesar Saloma, who eventually became my advisor,” she recalled. “I guess it turned out that they’re not used to hearing somebody like me. My weakness when I was in high school was my strength when I was in college because I’m more comfortable speaking in front of the class, more than the rest. But it’s all relative, right? So, I thought, if they only knew my high school friends!” That moment was transformative, especially for a struggling Perez, who was just trying to pass her subjects. “They must have seen my potential and decided to bet on me, even if I wasn’t as good as those from the science high schools,” she said. “So when they accepted me, I valued it immensely, especially since I ended up doing really well on the research part. I super enjoyed the act of research! Exploring something that you don’t know where it will lead to… I found it very interesting and exciting because every day is unique.” Mission: Come back home It was also in college that she found the role models in the sciences that she didn’t have growing up. One of the most influential to her was Saloma, former chancellor of UP Diliman and professor emeritus at the National Institute of Physics. “He’s the one that really expressed passion for science, and more importantly, doing science in the Philippines. We had some scientists before in the Philippines who are now celebrated scientists out of the country. A few chose to stay and continue to do the science here, and he is one of them,” she said. “But what I learned from him, which influenced me in my career, is that you can do science in the Philippines and you are most needed here. You can create the highest impact here because the science that you do will help our society.” ROLE MODEL. Dr. Gay Jane Perez sends a message of inspiration for the high school participants of CanSat 101, a program for hands-on satellite development through the CanSat model. Photo courtesy of PhilSA After she was accepted into a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, she took with her those lessons from Saloma all the way to Washington, DC. Even when immersed in a world-class research center with top-of-the-line equipment at her disposal and Nobel Prize winning scientists down the hall from her office, she never forgot the Philippines. Throughout her time in NASA, she found herself constantly thinking, “How I wish we have something similar in the Philippines. I want to bring this to the Philippines.” After just a few months, she couldn’t wait to go back home. At that time, many people were awaiting her return home and counting on her contributions to the country. She made a parallel about how she felt back then in NASA when Christina Koch of the Artemis II mission became the first woman to orbit around the moon. “During their final burn to go to the moon, the last statement [Koch] said was, ‘We choose Earth.’ So, for me, it was like I went to NASA on a mission to come back home,” Perez said. NASA on Philippine soil Back in the Philippines, she applied the research she conducted and data she gathered in NASA by leading the development of the Philippines’ first local microsatellite, Diwata-1, and launched it in 2016. The satellite data was used for drought forecasting, agricultural monitoring, and climate assessment, targeted toward serving farmers and the agricultural sector during intense seasons of El Niño. Perez, although already a decorated scientist at this point, had a dream she still wanted to fulfill: to have something like NASA on Philippine soil. The next step was a no-brainer for the scientist as she eventually contributed to the establishment of the Philippine Space Agency. She had first served as officer-in-charge, deputy director general, and finally appointed director general by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in January 2026. LEADER. Dr. Gay Jane Perez takes her oath as director general of PhilSA in January 2026. Photo from Perez’s LinkedIn As a six-year old government agency, PhilSA is young, new, and exciting. Perez shared that the agency is now 247 personnel strong. Having been involved in its formation since Day 1, she knows that its people are the most crucial in ensuring its effectiveness and sustainability. But with “brain drain” — Filipino scientists choosing to migrate to countries with better pay, conditions, and research opportunities — the challenge is not to ask them to stay, but to create an environment that makes them want to stay. “What we are striving for and we think is really necessary is to create the environment for them to thrive, to absorb them. Because otherwise, the same narrative of a Filipino who eventually will seek for greener pastures out of the country, or will find more meaningful things to do outside, will continue,” Perez said. “[They usually think,] ‘What can I do here? We don’t have the equipment, we don’t have the resources, I’m better off doing my science outside, elsewhere.’ So creating that environment where they can see that they will thrive and excel and do good and do meaningful and impactful science, that’s still a work in progress. Now, in my capacity as the head of the agency, that’s where I’m focusing my energy.” The Philippine scientific community is resourceful and adaptable amid the lack of funding, equipment, and working “against all odds.” But Perez isn’t one to romanticize struggle. For her, pursuing a career in science shouldn’t always come with so many roadblocks. The organization’s annual Philippine Space Week is one way they are able to present to stakeholders and the general public why it is worth investing and betting on PhilSA and the Philippine scientific community. Throughout the week, they present the breakthroughs they achieved that year, the people and partnerships who made it all possible, and the emerging possibilities and opportunities that the space economy has to offer. They also show the problems and issues that space technology and data can help solve and the ways they can be implemented to serve the Filipino people. Through this event, they not only show what science in the Philippines can achieve, but also why scientists in the country are needed and worth supporting. Discoveries, adventures If, growing up, Perez never had a scientist speak at her career fair, it was a full circle moment for her to get invited to be her high school’s commencement speaker. She has now become the role model she never had in her formative years. Now, she’s dedicated herself to showing others that a career in the sciences is full of exciting discoveries and adventures. “They also used to say that becoming a scientist is like a vow of poverty, that you won’t get rich from the sciences. But I think that is not fair,” Perez said. “It is true in the sense that you won’t get rich, but it’s not like it will make you poor. And while you won’t get rich because you don’t get a lot of money, maybe you don’t need that much, anyway.” LESSONS. Dr. Gay Jane Perez delivers a talk at the 2026 Annual Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE) Meeting and Symposium in Bagac, Bataan. Photo from Perez’s LinkedIn “I also think it’s a very decent and high integrity profession,” Perez added. “Because for one, you disincentivize lying. Because science, right? You need data, facts. So this is a profession where you can earn by simply telling the truth. You can sleep soundly at night.” To the young Filipinos who are considering a career in the sciences, she wants them to know that, “There’s a future for you here. I’m one of you. Like you, before, I didn’t see a clear [career] path in the sciences. But now you can see me.” – Rappler.com Quotes in Filipino were translated to English for brevity. Elise Suarez is a Rappler intern from Puerto Princesa City and a Humanities student of the University of Asia & the Pacific.