Dr.Mannix P. Balanay received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 2012 from Kunsan National University, the Republic of Korea where he studied the design, synthesis, and fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells. During his Ph.D. studies, he was exposed to various density functional theory methodologies in the theoretical design of dyes and polymers to be used in organic solar cells. He was also trained to do organic synthesis of the dyes and their fabrication to solar cells, thereof. After completing his Ph.D., he was eventually hired as a Research Professor of the same university continuing with the research in third-generation solar cells. Before coming to Korea, he was an Instructor at Siquijor State College and Silliman University. He has two M.Sc. in Chemistry degrees specializing in Computational Chemistry (from Kunsan National University) and Bioinorganic Chemistry (from Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology, Republic of the Philippines). While in the Philippines, he has done a lot of environmental research starting with his Bachelor’s thesis was sponsored by the Philippine National Oil Company studying the effect of exhausts coming from the plant on the rain quality in the area. At Siquijor State College, aside from being an Instructor, he was also appointed as Science Research Specialist doing coastal resource management research wherein he learned underwater diving and earning his license as an advanced open water diver. At Silliman University, he was the Chemist of the Commercial Analysis Laboratory of the Department of Chemistry doing various chemical analyses mostly of soil and water for various sectors in the community. His Bioinorganic Chemistry specialization allowed him to have experience in bacterial cell cultures and protein profiling. In 2014, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of the Department of Chemistry of Nazarbayev University and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. He was a member of the Scientific-Technical Council of the Center for Energy and Advanced Materials of the National Laboratory of Astana.

In 2019, he was awarded the “Balik (returning) Scientist Program” award of the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCIEERD) of the Republic of the Philippines in coordination with the Chemistry Department of the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology. He is currently a technical panel member for nanomaterials for the DOST-PCIEERD reviewing grants and proposals.

Dr. Balanay incorporates a combinatorial approach in the study of various functional materials that are relevant to the current needs of society, such as energy, environment, and health. It covers a wide variety of fields in Chemistry such as Computational Chemistry, Materials Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Inorganic Chemistry. While doing his Ph.D. studies, he was instrumental in the 5-year grant approval of the research group to the National Research Fund in the Republic of Korea and the access to the computational facilities at the National Supercomputing Center in Korea (Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI)). When he accepted the faculty position at Nazarbayev University, he applied for the Social Policy Grant in 2015 with the research entitled “Effect of benzodiazole derivatives containing sulfur, oxygen, and selenium on the efficiency of porphyrin-based dye-sensitized solar cells” and in 2018, he got a 3-year grant from the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) grant program with the research on “Natural carbon dots as counter electrodes for photovoltaic applications”. He was also a research team member of the MES target grant “Innovative materials and systems for energy conversion and storage: Green energy generation and conversion”.

For information on his research lab, please click on this link.