John Daniel P. Ong is a Specialist Microbiologist and an Assistant Professor at the Microbiology Division, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). He finished his BS degree in Biology Major in Microbiology (2011) and MS degree in Microbiology Minor in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (2014) at UPLB. His MS thesis was about plant growth-promoting diazotrophs from salt-affected areas in the Philippines. Before entering the academe, he was a research associate at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, UPLB where he studied the microbial succession in cacao fermentation using molecular and phylogenetic analyses. He was also involved in the project “Capacity Building of Tertiary Educators in the Teaching of Selected Microbiology Courses” where several educators from different Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the country were trained in the field of microbiology. Currently, he is the project leader of the project “Taxonomic and Functional Diversity Profiling of Soil Rhizosphere Microbial Communities in Forests Over Limestone Ecosystem” of the CONserve-Kaigangan Program in UPLB.