Arnisson Andre C. Ortega

After receiving my Bachelor's Degree in Geography at the University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2001, I was fully decided of pursuing a career in the academe and contribute to the development of Geography as a discipline in my country, the Philippines. Having been interested in population processes particularly migration, I pursued a Master's Degree in Demography at the University of the Philippines Population Institute. My master's thesis dealt with the relationship between internal migration and solid waste disposal in Metro Manila. I joined the University of the Philippines Department of Geography as an instructor in 2002 and taught courses that ranged from Introduction to Human Geography to Quantitative Methods in Geographic Analysis. During this period, I took part in numerous Departmental and University projects and actively engaged in several local professional organizations such as the Philippine Geographical Society (President, 2005) and the Philippine Social Science Council (Board Member, 2005). In 2006, I was awarded a Foreign Fulbright Grant to pursue a Ph.D. in Geography in the United States.

My main research interest is on migration and its intersection with urbanization and development in the Philippines. My recent work has focused on understanding the spatial growth of the Manila Mega-Urban Region (MUR) and analyzing population deconcentration within the MUR. Within this main research theme, I am primarily concerned with the motives of counterurban migration into the peri-urban region surrounding Metro Manila and the associated developmental and environmental changes in these receiving communities.

Outside academic work, I enjoy listening to 80s pop music and 70s folk/slow rock, reading travel guides, exploring cityscapes, jogging, working-out, drawing landscapes and human forms, and experimenting on vegetarian dishes.