A former teacher at the Pangasinan State University-Bayambang Campus, Elmina Quinto Paras has won a string of international awards for her invention of a new motorcycle engine bio-lubricant based on the sap of the pili nut. Ms. Paras, who grew up in Zone III, is now a teacher at Manuel Roxas Senior High School in Manila, where her husband is based, but she used to be a former faculty member of the Science and Math Department of PSU-BC, where she taught general science subjects to high school, college, and postgraduate students. She is the daughter of Jaime Quinto Sr. and Prof. Elsa Ferrer Quinto. Paras’ winning entry is entitled “A Novel Bio-Lubricant for Motorcycle Engine from Canarium Luzonicum Sap (Pili Nut Sap),” and juries from different parts of the world have recognized her novel invention. Her entry has been presented in Malaysia; India; Toronto, Canada; Turkey; Zagreb, Croatia; Moscow, Russia; the United States; and just recently in Moldova. A member of Manila Young Inventors Association and Toronto International Society of Innovation and Advanced Skills, Ms. Paras said that her award-winning work is now in the process of getting a patent and is being explored for possible commercial application. This and her other research work have been published in scientific journals in China and Canada.
In humility, Paras mentioned the following former mentors and colleagues: Dr. Raquel Carungay Pambid, who is the one who convinced her to take up chemistry for there were so few takers back then; Dr. Wilma Muena de Vera; Dr. Veronica Cancino Austria; and Dr. Armando Manzano.
She and the rest of her fellow PSU educators are proof that the sprawling historic campus in Bayambang remains a fount of innovation and excellence as it has always been.