Mikaela Irene Dimaano Fudolig (born 1991 or 1992) is a Filipino physicist and former child prodigy. She is known for earning her undergraduate degree at the age of 16.

Life and career

Fudolig was a sophomore at Quezon City Science High School before being pulled into the experimental Early College Placement Program (ECPP). At the age of 11, she began her university education at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP Diliman). She was admitted without a high school diploma and without taking the UP College Admission Test (UPCAT). In 2007, at 16 years old, Fudolig graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics, summa cum laude, from UP Diliman. With a general weighted average of 1.099, she was the class valedictorian. She then joined the faculty of the National Institute of Physics after graduation. She earned her Master of Science degree in physics, and in 2014 her PhD from UP Diliman with her dissertation entitled, "Analytic treatment of consensus achievement in two-level opinion dynamics models of completely connected agents with single-type zealots." She was also a Fulbright scholar for doctoral enrichment in behavioral economics at the University of California, Irvine, where she was under the supervision of Donald G. Saari. Fudolig has worked as a research and development specialist for the Energy Development Corporation (EDC), and as an assistant professor at Ateneo de Manila University from 2016 to 2017. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vermont. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics from 2018 to 2020. In 2016, Fudolig was admitted to the University of the Philippines College of Law.

Selected publications