Biographical Highlights of the Life of Ramon Lores

           As a student of San Esteban Academy, he displayed high aptitude in mathematics and physics;

           A precocious student in high school, he was a voracious reader and had deep interest in writing. His first publication then was an essay in the now-defunct Manila Chronicle.

           In college, at the Mapua Institute of Technology, he studied chemical engineering and continued his interest in writing by becoming a staff writer for the school paper. He wrote many essays on science as well as poems.

          In his senior year in chemical engineering, he returned to his first love: physics. He was invited to do research in nuclear physics at the Philippine Atomic Research Center nuclear reactor in Diliman by the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission. There, he helped to develop a highly sensitive method of criminal detection by neutron activation analysis, which became the subject matter of his chemical engineering dissertation.

           He came to the US to pursue a doctorate in physics at Princeton University. At Princeton, his interest in social and human development began to take roots. There, he served as a cross-cultural advisor to the US Peace Corps.

           From Princeton, his deep concern for humanitarian matters took him to the United Nations and, eventually, to UNICEF, the United Nations Childrens Fund.

           At UNICEF, he traveled throughout the world in the cause of children. His role was to assist UNICEF offices as well as developing and third world countries in the application of science and technology for social and human development, with children and child-bearing women as the primary beneficiaries.

          Traveling frequently to the UN European Headquarter offices in Paris, France; Geneva, Switzerland; and Vienna, Austria, he was initially based at the UN Headquarters in New York where he rubbed elbows with heads of states and diplomats.

          In 1989, he was transferred to India, where he served as head of Information Technology at the country office in New Delhi. There, he served as the de facto Information Technology advisor to the surrounding South Asian countries.

          In 1994, the was appointed as Information Technology Officer for the UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and Northern Africa. There, his territorial responsibility covered all Islamic countries as far West as Morocco, as far East as Iran, as far North as Turkey, and as far South as Djibouti, in the horn of Africa.

          At the height of his UN career, he spoke fluent French and Arabic.

           He retired from UNICEF in 1999 and happily spends time with his wife, the former Violeta Eleccion Vergara, and their three children: Valerie, Ramon 3rd, and Rainier.