Cristina Padolina

Maria Cristina Damasco-Padolina (born 1946) is the current and seventh President and Chief Academic Officer of Centro Escolar University in Manila, Philippines.

Career
Born in Ilocos Sur, Padolina was educated in Chemical Engineering at the University of the Philippines and received her M.S. in Chemistry in 1967 at the Ateneo de Manila University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin.

Padolina is a former commissioner at the Commission on Higher Education and also a professor emeritus at the Institute of Chemistry, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Laguna. She was also the chancellor of the UP Open University from March 1995 to February 2001. In 1999 Padolina received the Most Distinguished Alumna Award given by the UP Alumni Engineers. Padolina is a member of the Advisory Group of the National Health Promotion Committee, and was on the executive board of the Asian Association of Open Universities from 1998 to 2001. She was appointed as the University's President and Chief Academic Officer on September 2006, replacing the retiring Rosita L. Navarro. She led the university's centennial in 2007.