The administrators of the Research Center for Social Sciences and Education (RCSSED) won national and international research prizes for their doctoral projects in Australian universities.
RCSSED Assistant Director Pia Patricia Tenedero received this year’s Virginia A. Miralao Excellence in Research Award (VAMERA) from the Philippine Social Science Council (PSSC).
Dr. Tenedero won the award for her book titled Communication that Counts: Language Practice and Ideology in Globalized Accounting, which comes from her Ph.D. thesis at Macquarie University in Australia. The book was published as part of the Language at Work series by publisher Multilingual Matters, based in Bristol in the United Kingdom.
VAMERA honors former PSSC Executive Director Dr. Virginia Miralao and the prize comes from a 2012 grant to PSSC by Professor Emerita Dr. Belinda Aquino of the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the US.
The award, handed out to a published journal article, book chapter or book, serves as an incentive (i.e., below 45 years old) 鈥渢o pursue original and meaningful research鈥�.
Dr. Tenedero, currently an honorary research fellow at Macquarie University鈥檚 Department of Linguistics, will receive a unique trophy made by noted visual artist Toym Leon Imao.
Meanwhile, RCSSED Director Jeremaiah Opinianowon the 2024 Dissertation Award from the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA).
Dr. Opiniano won for his doctoral project titled ‘Overseas Remittances and Rural Hometown Investing: Towards an Understanding of the Migration-and-Local Development Nexus.”
His Ph.D. project, in May 2021 at The University of Adelaide, had already won the John Lewis Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Doctoral Research in Geography, from the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia (RGSSA).
MMIRA鈥檚 dissertation awards, the Association said, 鈥渞ecognize a beginning scholar completing original research whose dissertation has made an outstanding contribution to the field of mixed methods research鈥�.
Applicants to the 2024 MMIRA dissertation award must have the Ph.D. thesis or dissertation defended / passed during the period December 1, 2020 to September 30, 2023.
Drs. Tenedero and Opiniano belong to the Faculty of Arts and Letters’ English and Journalism programs, respectively.
Distinguished Professor Ingrid Piller and Dr. Loy Lising acted as primary and co-supervisors, respectively of Dr. Tenedero. Meanwhile, Drs. Yan Tan (primary) and Dianne Marie Rudd (co-supervisor) advised Dr. Opiniano鈥檚 project.
The individual citations of the two directors come as RCSSED received the Outstanding Research Institution Award, for Social Sciences and the Humanities, from the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP) in March of this year.
