Rey Joseph “RJ” Nieto
Curriculum Vitae
Public servant and mathematician with a background in quantitative research, university teaching, journalism, and strategic communications. I aim to apply network science, probabilistic modelling, and causal inference to the study of complex systems and public policy.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rjosephnieto
Professional experience
Assistant Secretary
Office of the Cabinet Secretary
Office of the President of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
September 2026–Present
I analyse policy and implementation issues for the Cabinet Secretary, drawing on government data, agency inputs, and field validation. I prepare policy briefs, technical assessments, options, and recommendations, and support interagency coordination. The role is advisory and analytical; decisions and implementation remain with the responsible offices.
Opinion Columnist
Manila Bulletin
2020–2021; 2026–Present
I write Calculated, a weekly Saturday opinion column. I previously wrote the weekly Thinking Pinoy column from 2020 to 2021.
Instructor (Mathematics and IT)
Bulacan State University · San Rafael, Bulacan, Philippines
2026–Present
I teach part-time undergraduate Saturday classes in Mathematics in the Modern World and Living in the IT Era, covering quantitative reasoning, data analysis, online safety, and emerging technologies.
Teaching Assistant (Mathematics)
University of Bristol · Bristol, United Kingdom
2025–2026
Official title: Mathematical Programming Demonstrator
I supported second-year mathematics students with Python, numerical methods, debugging, and computational problem-solving.
Host, PTV-4 Pre-SONA Special
People’s Television Network
2024
I hosted coverage ahead of the Philippine President’s State of the Nation Address, interviewing Cabinet officials about government programmes, departmental performance, and policy implementation.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Thinking Pinoy
2015–2023
I founded and managed a platform reaching an aggregate audience of more than two million followers across its social-media channels and directed editorial work on government, economic policy, foreign affairs, and national developments.
Television Host and Commentator
SMNI News
2020–2022
I hosted a weekday current-affairs programme featuring commentary and interviews with officials, public figures, and subject specialists.
Project Co-Lead, PPEniTP Initiative
PPEniTP Initiative
2020–2021
I coordinated donors, hospitals, distribution partners, local government units, and nationwide logistics. Collectively, the initiative delivered more than PHP 25 million in personal protective equipment to over 100 hospitals.
Radio Programme Co-host
Aliw Broadcasting Corporation (DWIZ 882 AM)
2017–2020
I provided political and public-policy commentary on Karambola, a daily current-affairs programme.
Consultant, Strategic Communications (Content)
Department of Foreign Affairs, Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs
2017
I produced digital material explaining policies, programmes, and consular information for overseas Filipinos.
Earlier Writing and Communications Experience
Ability with Innovation LLC; international clients; Sun.Star Davao
2009–2015
I prepared technical and commercial proposals for government, supranational, and energy-sector clients; completed writing and editing assignments for more than 30 clients across North America, Europe, and Australia; and reported on government and community affairs.
Education
MSc Applied and Computational Mathematics
The Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
2026–Present
My planned studies focus on statistical and causal inference, network science, game theory, and the mathematical foundations of machine learning, with applied work in social media analytics and an introduction to generative AI.
MSc Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy
University College London (UCL)
2026–Present
My aim is to consolidate my technical knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and apply it to actionable public policy. My UCL studies are currently on hold while I prioritise the JHU programme; I have until 2031 to complete the degree.
BSc Mathematics with First Class Honours
University of Bristol · Bristol, United Kingdom
2023–2026
Selected advanced and computational study included persistent homology and algebraic stability; mathematical logic and group theory; combinatorics, graph theory, and linear algebra; metric-space topology and stochastic processes; generalised linear models and statistical machine learning; neural networks and large language models; optimisation and dynamic programming; and cryptography. I also completed a 40-credit Economics unit in microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Selected technical and research projects
Computational Stability of Cubical Homology
Final-year BSc dissertation, University of Bristol · 2026 · Paper Mark: 90%
I developed and tested a reproducible, parallelised Python pipeline for cubical persistent homology on 400 retinal images across ten perturbation protocols and 170 settings. The study examined whether contrasting topological and geometric response profiles could help distinguish spatial misalignment from radiometric corruption.
Cryptographic Implementation and Security Analysis
Vigenère–RSA with bigram encoding · Second-year BSc Python project, University of Bristol · 2024
I built and stress-tested a Python implementation combining RSA key exchange with randomised bigram encoding and documented weaknesses arising from design and implementation choices.
Sovereign-Investment Safeguards Analysis
Foundation Certificate extended project, Kaplan International College London · 2023
I synthesised legal, economic, and public-source evidence to compare proposed safeguards for the Philippine Maharlika Investment Fund with institutional failures identified in the 1MDB case. Kaplan selected the paper as an anonymised model for future cohorts.
Technical and language skills
- Programming languages: Python, R, MATLAB, and Java
- Python ecosystem: scientific computing and machine learning (NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn, PyTorch, and TensorFlow); computer vision and visualisation (OpenCV and Matplotlib); topological data analysis (GUDHI and Ripser)
- Development and publishing: Git/GitHub, Quarto, and LaTeX
- Spoken languages: English and Tagalog (fluent)
- Preferred: rj (at) rjnieto (dot) com
- UCL: rey.nieto.26 (at) ucl (dot) ac (dot) uk
- Johns Hopkins: rnieto4 (at) jhu (dot) edu
- Bristol: zo23232 (at) alumni (dot) bristol (dot) ac (dot) uk