07-07-2025
Filipino scholar graduates cum laude from Yale with dual degrees in Physics and Math
Filipino scholar Nathan Wayne Ariston graduated cum laude from Yale University with dual degrees in Physics and Mathematics.
Ariston received the Howard L. Schultz Prize, an award given to a Yale student who demonstrates excellence and inventiveness in experimental physics. The award is named after a nuclear physicist who helped design and lead Yale's first linear accelerator laboratory.
He is the first graduate of the Philippine Science High School – Central Mindanao Campus to be accepted into Yale. He completed his secondary education at the campus in 2021.
A proud member of the indigenous Teduray community from Southern Mindanao and the son of a farmer and a public school teacher, Ariston expressed pride in representing the Philippines and his roots on the international stage.
'I feel proud to have brought the name of my people, Filipinos and the indigenous Tedurays specifically, to the world stage in a way,' Ariston told Inquirer USA.
He also expressed gratitude to his parents for supporting his pursuit of science, a field he noted is not always a common path encouraged in many Filipino families.
Ariston will pursue graduate studies at Columbia University, another Ivy League institution.
He expressed hope that a campus of the Philippine Science High School will be established in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to expand access to science education in Mindanao.
