Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Jerome B. Zayas
This feature is part of UP CAMP’s Alumni Spotlight Series, highlighting recipients of the CAMP Luminary Awards. Conferred during the College’s Foundation Month celebrations in November 2025, the CAMP Luminary Awards recognize alumni whose professional achievements and service have contributed to their fields and to society.
Among the awardees is Dr. Jerome B. Zayas (BSPT 1996), recipient of the CAMP Luminary Award for Global Impact – Australia and Oceania, recognizing his contributions to disability-inclusive development, public health, disaster and climate resilience, and policy and systems reform.
Over nearly three decades, Dr. Zayas has worked across Southeast and South Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and East Africa. His work has focused on integrating disability inclusion and broader equity considerations into mainstream development systems, including health, education, transport and infrastructure, social protection, disaster risk reduction, climate resilience, and urban development.
He currently serves as a Senior Inclusion Adviser with CBM Global’s Inclusion Advisory Group, providing technical and policy advice to development partners and governments. His recent work includes embedded advisory support to the Australian Government’s development program in Timor-Leste, where he has contributed to disability equity and rights across human development investments, including health, rehabilitation, education, local governance, infrastructure, and related systems.
From 2021 to 2024, Dr. Zayas served as Lead Inclusion Adviser for the Australian Government-supported Education Pathways to Peace Program in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Working with the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education and program partners, he contributed to the development and institutionalization of the Inclusive Schools Approach, including policy, functional assessment, information and learning-management systems, teacher capability development, and referral pathways. The work sought to translate learner-level evidence into practical responses at classroom, school, community, and education-system levels.
His earlier work has included research and advisory assignments with organizations such as the World Health Organization, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Australian Government/DFAT, UN agencies, and international development organizations. These assignments have covered disability inclusion, public health and emergency preparedness, disaster recovery, urban resilience, inclusive education, accessible transport, and institutional and policy reform.
Dr. Zayas has also maintained a strong research focus. He has contributed to peer-reviewed studies on disability and functioning following Typhoon Haiyan, disability prevalence and community participation, access to sexual and reproductive health services, and responses to violence against women and girls with disabilities. His wider research has examined urban resilience, climate adaptation, inclusive development, and the institutional conditions through which policy commitments are translated into practice.
His policy work in the Philippines spans several stages of the country’s inclusive education reforms. This has included earlier work on Indigenous Peoples’ and Muslim education, contributions to disability and inclusive education policy development, and subsequent support to the implementation of inclusive education systems in BARMM. More recently, his work has expanded into disability-inclusive nature-based solutions and climate resilience, including participatory research with communities and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities in Laos and Solomon Islands.
Dr. Zayas holds a Doctor of Sustainable Development from Curtin University, a Master of International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from the University of the Philippines Manila – College of Allied Medical Professions. His interdisciplinary career reflects a continuing interest in how research, policy, and institutional reform can improve the participation of persons with disabilities and other groups who may otherwise be excluded from mainstream development processes.
Through the CAMP Luminary Award for Global Impact – Australia and Oceania, UP CAMP recognizes Dr. Zayas’s sustained contribution to disability inclusion, sustainable development, resilience, and the translation of research and policy into institutional practice.
