Fidel Nemenzo

Fidel Ronquillo Nemenzo is a Filipino mathematician and professor who served as chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman from 2020 to 2023.

His areas of expertise include number theory, elliptic curves, and coding theory. He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from UP Diliman while his master's and Doctor of Science degrees are from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

Career On March 2, 2020, he succeeded Michael Tan and became the eleventh Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman. Immediately prior to his appointment, he was vice chancellor for Research and Development of UP Diliman and is the convenor of the Center for Integrative Development Studies' Data Science for Public Policy Program. He chairs the Mathematics Division of the National Research Council of the Philippines, having been elected to the NRCP Governing Board in 2019. He was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the UP Diliman College of Science and headed its Science and Society Program.

Family Nemenzo is the son of political scientist and former UP president Francisco Nemenzo Jr. the Achievement Award in Mathematics from the National Research Council of the Philippines in 2013; and the Gawad Chancellor Para sa Pinakamahusay na Guro, which he received from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2005. and almost died from the single M-16 bullet that pierced through his body. Fellow activists attribute his survival from his wounds to the fact that he was a runner. He was known for his athleticism and healthy lifestyle in the campus.

In recent years, he has strongly denounced the red tagging of UP students who have taken a stand against authoritarianism in the Philippines.

On January 19, 2020, he spoke at the protest demonstration against the Department of National Defense (DND)'s unilateral termination of the 1989 UP-DND Accord which requires the police and military to notify UP officials before they enter UP campuses. During the protest, he declared that academic freedom and "UP as a safe space and a zone for free thought and free speech" have to be defended at all times.