Amando Kapauan

Who was Amando Kapauan?

Dr. Amando F. Kapauan was a chemist and researcher. He graduated magna cum laude from University of the Philippines, Diliman in 1952, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Southern California in 1959.

In the Ateneo de Manila University Department of Chemistry, he worked on inorganic and physical chemistry, particularly on radioactive bromine. With other colleagues, he initiated investigations in the 1970s on heavy metals analysis in our environment. He was among the first to look into the problem of mercury in the environment, and he designed the appropriate equipment for mercury analysis in water, fish and soil.

Kapauan linked with international groups, taught one of the first environmental chemistry courses in the country, and involved himself in policies on urban-rural planning.

He later went into the field of electronics, specifically chemical instrumentation. Together with Fr. William Schmitt, S.J., they pioneered the maintenance, design and modification of instruments.

Kapauan’s first publication appeared in the Journal of Chemical Education in May 1973.

He also started to interface traditional instruments with the increasingly popular PC. By the 1980s, his students were designing software for them, including Fourier Transform of signals. He redesigned a spectrophotometer with vacuum-tube technology into one with solid-state technology, run by a PC with software written by his students.