Isay leads the Q-quatics team involved in the global fisheries catch reconstruction and CMSY led by the Sea Around Us. She is also currently heading a project focused on georeferencing marine invertebrate collections. In her role, she validates and encodes taxonomic and nomenclatural information, as well as new species data, including distribution and related biological information, into FishBase and SeaLifeBase, under the guidance of Dr. Nicolas Bailly and Emily Capuli.
Her past projects involved database assembly and management under the Catalogue of Life project for 8+ years, mapping and digitization of freshwater fishes and aquatic plants using GIS, and was a member of the Qq species identification team doing image analysis using BRUVS (Baited Remote Underwater Video System).
Isay is a University of the Philippines Los Baños alumna who holds a degree in Biology and Food Science, with current research interests in marine biodiversity and conservation, database management, and food security. She hopes to learn more about fisheries, global issues on fisheries management and their impacts on countries around the world.
In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, spending quality time with family and friends, and watching her favorite shows/K-drama series.