Introducing Philippines Satellite Campus New Director -- Dr. Mary Jean Garsuta-Bulatao

Dr. Bulatao received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture, with a major in animal science, from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in 1983. That same year, she started working as a Training Assistant and later as a Research Assistant at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Studies and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA). In 1986, she was hired by UPLB as a Research Assistant under the then Farming Systems and Soil Resources Institute (presently, the Agricultural Systems Institute). She was assigned as the Livestock Specialist in the Hillyland-based Farming Systems Division. In 1995, she finished her Master’s Degree in Animal Science with a scholarship grant from the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP). One year through her PhD program in Animal Science, she was awarded a scholarship by the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) in 1998. During this time, she also received a four-month research grant from SEARCA to conduct part of her dissertation research at the University of Queensland, Gatton Campus, in Australia. She completed her PhD in Animal Science in 2003. During the 2004 Philippine Society of Animal Science annual national convention, she received the Best Paper Award for her paper “The Potential of Chevon Drying in Small Farming Households,”.

In the course of her professional career as a Licensed Agriculturist and as a University Researcher, she was part of several notable projects on crop-animal systems, farming systems, native swine production, alternative feed evaluation and production for swine, meat quality, small farmer livelihood, and organic livestock production. She was also an affiliate Assistant Professor for 10 years at the Institute of Animal Science, UPLB, teaching undergraduate courses in meat science.

She also represented her team in research proposal competitions, notably during the World Bank Development Marketplace competition in which their team won a grant in 2005 for the Rice-Duck Systems research proposal and was among the 22 finalists in the 2008 competition.

In 2015, she was moved to a faculty position at the Agricultural Systems Institute under the Agricultural Systems Studies Division, a new teaching division that housed the two new undergraduate major programs of the College of Agriculture and Food Science (CAFS). She taught undergraduate courses in Crop-Animal Systems and Agricultural Systems. She was also part of the Curriculum Committee that develop the undergraduate courses in the Agricultural Systems program. Throughout, she was engaged as a resource person and coordinator in farmers’ and other stakeholders’ training, involved in technical complementation and collaborative activities with other government and private institutions, and is affiliated with several relevant professional organizations.

She was a grantee of several fellowships such as the Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Texas A & M University, U.S.A in 2006-2007, the Netherlands Fellowship Grant at Wageningen University in 2000, and the Australian AIDAB Fellowship at the University of Queensland, Australia in 1990, among others. She received the Outstanding Professional in Animal Science Award- Extension given by the Philippine Society of Animal Science in 2015 and is also a two-time awardee of the One UP Faculty Grant in 2016-2019 and 2019-2021.

She retired from UPLB in 2023 holding an Associate Professor position. She currently holds the position of Director and Designated Associate Professor of the Nagoya University Asian Satellite Campus-Philippines based at the UPLB effective 1 January 2024. (MJGB)