Chris Monterola

Dr. Christopher Monterola is a distinguished physicist, machine learning scientist, educator, and technology advisor with a prolific academic and professional track record. He holds the Aboitiz Chair in Data Science and serves as a full professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). As the founding head of AIM’s Aboitiz School of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (ASITE), Dr. Monterola is at the forefront of advancing interdisciplinary education and innovation. He also leads the Analytics, Computing, and Complex Systems (ACCeSs) Lab as its Principal Scientist and Executive Managing Director, steering cutting-edge research and practical applications in data science and complexity science.

Dr. Monterola has mentored over 200 data scientists, AI engineers, and physicists, including 12 Ph.D. graduates, across diverse industries worldwide. His expertise in complexity science and artificial intelligence (AI) has driven multi-million-dollar projects in the Philippines and Singapore, delivering transformative solutions for enterprises, governments, and communities.

Outside academia, Dr. Monterola plays a pivotal role in the private sector as the Lead Independent Director of Xurpas ($X), a publicly listed technology company. He has been instrumental in the digital transformation of several leading Philippine companies and government agencies. Notably, he contributed to developing the Philippines' National AI Roadmap, has been serving on the EDCOM2 Standing Committee, and advises on the Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028.

In recognition of his contributions, Dr. Monterola was inducted as an Academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) in 2020, the highest honor for scientists in the Philippines. This prestigious appointment underscores his lifelong role as a scientific advisor to the President and government on critical science and technology issues.

Current Positions

• Founding School Head, Professor, Aboitiz Chair in Data Science
  Aboitiz School of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (SITE)
  Asian Institute of Management, Philippines 

• Founding Executive Managing Director and Principal Scientist
  Analytics, Computing, Complex Systems (ACCeSs) Lab
  Asian Institute of Management, Philippines 

• Founding Program Director
  Ph.D. in Data Science
  Asian Institute of Management, Philippines 

• Academician
  National Academy of Science and Technology, Philippines (June 2020 - present)

Other Active Positions

• Independent Director (November 2022 - present)
  Xurpas, Inc. (PSE:X)

• International Advisory Board Member
  Center for Integrated STEM Inc.

• Policy Advisor
  DTI National AI Roadmap, Philippine Development Plan 2022-2028, Standing Committee member of EDCOM 2,
  Various enterprises and organizations on Digital Transformation

Previous Positions

• Senior Scientist and Capability Group Manager of the Complex Systems (CxSy) Capability Group, Computing Science Department, Institute of High-Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore (August 2013-August 2017)

• Principal Investigator/Scientific Director, Complex Systems Programme, A*STAR Urban Systems Initiative (2012-present)

• Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Complexity Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. (October 2015-2020)

• Associate Professor 7, National Institute of Physics, UP Diliman (2005-2012)

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden (2003-2005)

Research

His current research activities revolve around Machine Learning, Complex Systems, Deep Learning, Algorithmic Auditing, Computational Physics, Complex Networks, and General Forecasting. His previous research focused on the following fields: Landslide and Granular Dynamics, Biological Physics, Social Networks, Physics Education, Network Science, Public Opinion Research, Game Theory, Olfactory Systems, and Econophysics. The image below qualitatively shows the frequency distribution of the top 100 words used across all the abstracts of his publications in ISI-indexed journals. The word cloud was generated using Wordle.

Awards

• 2020 Elevated to the rank Academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Philippines -  this is a lifetime membership,
  and Academicians are distinguished members of the National Academy of Science and Technology (abbreviated as NAST), the highest recognition and scientific advisory body of the Philippines.

• 2016 Country Prize Winner (Singapore), United Nations Global Pulse's The Big IDEAS Competition for Sustainable Cities and Urban Communities, June 2016. EF Legara, C Monterola, JF Valenzuela. [presentation]

• 2016  SMRT Most Innovative Solution Award, IHPC (from CxSy MA Ramli, V Jayaraman, G Lee, C Monterola), SMRT Vendors' Day, 30 March 2016. 

• 2014 ICCS Best Workshop Paper. N Othman, EF Legara, V Selvam, C Monterola, "Simulating Congestion Dynamics of Train Rapid Transit using Smart Card Data," International Conference on Computational Science, Cairns, Australia, 9-12 June 2014.

• 2013 IEEE SCALE Challenge. First Prize Winner. H Kasim, T Hung, EF Legara, C Monterola, G Lee, X Li, BS Lee, S Lu, L Wang, and V Jayaraman, "Scalable Complex System Modeling for Sustainable City," Sixth IEEE International Scalable Computing Challenge (SCALE 2013), Delft, Netherlands, 14-16 May 2013. 

• National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) Outstanding Young Scientists (2011)

• NAST Talent Search for Young Scientist Awardee (2011)

• Conferred the scientist rank one by the University of the Philippines System (2009-present)

• University of the Philippines Centennial Professorial Chair (2008-2012)

• National Research Council of the Philippines (NCRP) Lifetime Achievement Award for Physics (2008)

• Most Outstanding PhD student / Dean`s Medallion / Batch Valedictorian (2002)

• Edgardo Gomez Award for Excellence in Dissertation Research (2002)

• Gawad Chanselor : Most Outstanding Graduate Student (Science & Technology Cluster) (2002)

• Gawad Chanselor: Best Published Research (2002)

• Most Outstanding Masteral Graduate student –Dean`s Medallion, Batch Valedictorian (1999)

Most Recent Scientific Publications

• J Noel, C Monterola, DS Tan, "Improving recommendation diversity without retraining from scratch." International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-024-00518-9

• MP Liponhay, A Valerio, C Monterola, "Time-delayed causal network analysis of meteorological variables and air pollutants in Baguio city," Journal of Atmospheric Pollution Research, 102095, 2024.

• M Dorosan, D Dailisan, JF Valenzuela, C Monterola, "Use of machine learning in understanding transport dynamics of land use and public transportation in a developing city," Cities 144, 104587, 2024.

• M Liponhay, A Valerio, G Fornan, C Alis, C Monterola, "Dynamic Assessment of Urban Carrying Capacity Load Number Using the Enhanced UCCLN Model," Sustainability 16 (1), 35, 2023.

•  M Liponhay, JF Valenzuela, M Dorosan, D Dailisan, C Monterola, "A Dynamic Urban Mobility Index from Clustering of Vehicle Speeds in a Tourist-Heavy City," Applied Sciences 13 (23), 12763, 2023.

• S Ibañez, C Monterola, "A Global Forecasting Approach to Large-Scale Crop Production Prediction with Time Series Transformers," Agriculture 13 (9), 1855, 2023.

• PJ Javier, MP Liponhay, CV Dajac, C Monterola, "Causal network inference in a dam system and its implications on feature selection for machine learning forecasting," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 604, 127893, 2022.

• HE Tan, J Hong Wen Oon, NB Othman, EF Legara, C Monterola, et al.,  "Quantifying the resilience of rapid transit systems: A composite index using a demand-weighted complex network model," PLoS one 17 (4), e0267222, 2022.

• D Dailisan, M Liponhay, C Alis, C Monterola, "Amenity counts significantly improve water consumption predictions," PloS one 17 (3), e0265771, 2022.

• JFB Valenzuela, EF Legara, CP Monterola, "Typology, network features and damage response in worldwide urban road systems," PLoS One 17 (3), e0264546, 2022.

[View complete list]

Past and Upcoming Event(s)

• Using Complex Systems to Advance Transport Planning

  • • Invited Speaker

    • Urban Sustainability R&D Congress

    • 29-30 June 2017

• Smart Data, Smart City: Insights on Creating Predictive Models of Urban Dynamics

  • • Keynote Speaker

    • Computing Science Congress

    • 16-18 March 2017

• On Urban Planning and Human Mobility

  • • Lecturer and part of the organising committee

    • 2017 NTU-Warwick Complex Systems Winter School

    • 09 -15 March 2017

• IEEE 18th International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering (HASE2017)

  • • Main Organiser and Panel Moderator

    • IEEE International Symposium on HASE

    • 12-14 January 2017

• Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Biological System (MCMBS) 2016

  • • Invited Speaker

    • Bio-inspired Computing: Noise, Structure, and Emergence

    • 30 November – 02 December 2016​

• Accelerating the Way to a Smart Nation

  • • Main Organiser and Panel Moderator

    • IHPC Symposium 2016 

    • 28 March 2016

• Insights on Urban Mobility through Complexity Science

  • • Lecturer and part of the organising committee

    • 2016 NTU-Warwick Winter School

    • 10-16 March 2016

• A Modeling Perspective on How Interactions Shape the Complexity of City Dynamics

  • • Invited Speaker

    • ISC High Performance Conference 2015 (Frankfurt, Germany)

    • 12-16 July 2015

• Introduction to Complexity Science

  • • Lecturer

    • 2015 NTU-Warwick Winter School

    • 16-27 February 2015

• Transitions in Discrete Choice 2014

  • • Organiser Satellite Meeting

    • European Conference on Complex Systems

    • Lucca, Italy, 24 September, 2014