In January 2020, Dr. Joel Joseph S. Marciano, Jr. was appointed as the first Director General (DG) of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) with the rank of a Cabinet Secretary. As PhilSA DG, Dr. Marciano provides executive direction and supervision over the newly created national government agency, and serves as Presidential Adviser on Space Matters.

 

Prior to the PhilSA, Dr. Marciano served as the Director of the Department of Science and Technology–Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST–ASTI). He is also a Full Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of the Philippines Diliman, where he held the Dado and Maria Banatao Professorial Chair. He is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellow at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan in 2003 and a UP-Dado Banatao Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Berkeley in 2004 and at University of California San Diego in 2005.

 

Dr. Marciano has over 25 years of experience leading and managing R&D and technical operations in various specialized technology areas. This includes his role as the Program Leader of the PHL-Microsat and STAMINA4Space programs from 2014 to 2020 for the development and utilization of the country’s first scientific Earth observation microsatellites, Diwata-1 and Diwata-2, the Maya nanosatellites, and at least 10 more small satellites in various stages of development. These efforts also include associated activities in ground station development and mission control operations, data archiving and distribution, remote sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) computing on geospatial data, academic program institution, establishment of local small satellite research and testing facilities, and local industry engagement in space technology.