Winning Thomasian engineers (from left) Engr. Jeffrey Mercado, Maria Jose Pastor, John Vincent Dimaunahan, Madeleine Concepcion Macchetti and Ferdinand Endrick Macaspac with session chairperson Universitas Gadjah Mada associate professor Ambar Pertiwiningrum (fourth from left).

Four students from the University of Santo Tomas in their fifth year level under the Mechanical Engineering program received the Best Presentation Award for their paper “Energy Assessment, Evaluation and Conservation of the Architecture, Fine Arts and Design Buildings in the Philippines,” during the 2nd International Conference on New Energy and Environmental Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

They initially submitted their paper for publication, but they were instead invited to present it during the conference, making them the only student group and the only participants from the Philippines

Awarded were John Vincent Dimaunahan, Ferdinand Endrick Macaspac, Madeleine Concepcion Macchetti, Maria Jose Pastor together with their adviser and co-author Engr. Jeffrey Mercado.

The study assessed the physical and electricity usage to provide energy policies for energy saving. Their recommended strategies are expected to result in 20 to 25 percent reduction in electricity consumption. They initially submitted their paper for publication, but they were instead invited to present it during the conference, making them the only student group and the only participants from the Philippines.

The conference participants were engineers and IT professionals from all over the world. Among the keynote speakers were the deans of Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Okayama University of Science (Japan), National University of Singapore and Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia).