UPIEAA Nominates Josef Yap for UPAE Professional Degree Award in Industrial Engineering for 2016

Every year in the November timeframe, the UP Alumni Engineers holds the annual engineering homecoming and one of the highlights is the awarding of most outstanding alumni and professional degree awards in the various engineering disciplines. UPIEAA has consistently nominated outstanding IE alumni for the prestigious professional degree award. For 2015, UPIEAA nominated Jeng Pascual, IE 86, of Shell Exploration. In 2014, the association nominated Jody Gadia, IE 82, of Robinson’s Retail. In 2013, it was Elise del Rosario.

For 2016, UPIEAA nominated sitting director Josef ‘Jop’ Yap, IE 80, for the award. The nomination went as follows:

From 2005 to his retirement in 2013, Dr. Josef Yap was President and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, or PIDS. As President, Dr. Yap set the Institute’s 5- year research agenda and ensured that research reports met the Institute’s standards before dissemination to the general public. Under his term, the Institute entered into formal partnerships with the National Economic and Development Agency (NEDA), Department of Trade and Industry, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Budget and Management, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Foreign Affairs, and Department of Social Welfare and Development. The role of PIDS in regional networks and its contribution to research in Asian economic integration expanded during his term as president. Prior to the presidency, Dr. Yap was PIDS Senior Research Fellow.

From 2010 till retirement, Dr. Yap was also Regional Coordinator of East Asian Development Network, or EADN, where he managed a grant which supported young researchers in East Asia. He is currently the Lead Economist for the Second Compact, a project under the auspices of the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the US Government, and a Professorial Lecturer at the UP School of Economics.

In 1985 he finished his Ph.D. in Economics at UP-Diliman and in 1987 he visited the University of Pennsylvania on a Post-Graduate Program. He has been Editorial Adviser of the Asian Economic Journal since 2013. Jop was named as one of the 100 Outstanding Alumni of the UP Diliman College of Engineering as part of the 2010 Centennial celebration.