Filipino Chemist - Dr. Quirino O. Navarro

With significant contributions to nuclear science, Dr. Quirino O. Navarro is a leading chemist in the Philippines. He was born in 1936 and graduated from the University of the Philippines with an undergraduate degree in Chemistry in 1956. After this he went on to receive a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry at the University of California in 1962, during which time he worked on a variety of research opportunities as part of his studies. These are all based around the physical sciences in chemistry, including a heavy emphasis on nuclear chemistry and its applications.

Some of the major discoveries or other contributions that Dr. Quirino O. Navarro has made in the scientific arena include his determination of different nuclear properties in the isotopes of such substances as dysproposium, einsteinium, and californium. These were achieved using innovative cryogenic techniques. The findings of these studies were published in two separate books, and three nuclear science journals, making them well known to the nuclear science community. To back up his claims and prove the results of this research, the findings were later confirmed using more advanced experimentation and instrumentation at the University of California at Berkeley.

Other areas of study that Dr. Quirino O. Navarro has distinguished his work in include neutron spectrometry and crystallography, along with instrumentation process and their applied techniques. Some of the specific topics that are covered in his documented experiments include a table of isotopes, perturbed angular correlations, alpha decay, and thermal equilibrium in nuclear orientation. He has studied the static and dynamic structure of various solids, for example, using instrumentation including neutron spectrometry.

A great deal of this foundation work completed by Dr. Quirino O. Navarro was carried out in the two decades that he began his studies in, the 1950's and 1960's, a time when nuclear chemistry was still undergoing a great deal of changes. This is why he is considered to be an extremely important international contributor to this particular field of science, which has since come forward in leaps and bounds. In his later work, Dr. Navarro made strides with the computerization of instruments used to analyze nuclear chemistry in all its facets, and has helped bring the science into the present day. He continues to give lectures and conduct research, isolating further components of nuclear and organic chemistry, and works with visiting researchers and other scientists from his laboratory, in California and the Philippines alike.