Mary Claire Barela is a researcher at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute, University of the Philippines- Diliman. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering in 2011 and her Master's in Electrical Engineering in 2014 from the same institution. She is currently leading the Village Base Station team with the Wireless Communications Engineering Lab (WCEL) at UP, which aims to put up several community cellular networks in remote and unserved barangays in Aurora, Philippines. Her past work has centered on rural connectivity and communications in the Philippines, with applications such as Internet access for public elementary schools and emergency communications for disaster response.