Director General
Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA)

Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
University of the Philippines Diliman

Dr. Joel Joseph S. Marciano Jr. is a Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). In January 2020, he was appointed as the first Director General of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), where he is now leading the buildup and mobilization of the newly created national government agency. Immediately prior to the PhilSA, Dr. Marciano served as the Acting Director of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI).

Dr. Marciano obtained his BS Electrical Engineering from UPD and his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He was a JSPS Fellow at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 2003, the UP-Dado Banatao Postdoctoral Fellow at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC) in the University of California Berkeley and at the School of Electrical and  Computer Engineering at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in 2004 and 2005, respectively. In 2007 and 2009, he was a Visiting Associate Research Scientist in UCSD. From 2013-2016, he served as the Interim Director of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Development (IIID) of the Philippines-California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) under the Philippines’ Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Dr. Marciano held the Dado and Maria Banatao Professorial Chair at the UP College of Engineering from 2010 until 2016 when he was seconded to the DOST-ASTI. He has over 25 years of experience leading and managing research & development and technical operations in specialized areas of wireless communications (software-defined and cognitive radio technology, RFID, MIMO, etc), radio frequency spectrum management and policy, rural connectivity, emergency response communications, sensor networks and scientific earth observation microsatellites. As the Program Leader of the PHL-Microsat and STAMINA4Space programs from 2014 to 2020, he led a diverse team in the development and utilization of the country’s first scientific earth observation microsatellites, Diwata-1 and Diwata-2, the nanosatellite Maya-1, and at least 10 more small satellites in various stages of development.  These initiatives include associated activities in ground station and mission control operations, data archiving and distribution, remote sensing and artificial intelligence on geospatial data, academic program development and the establishment of local research and testing facilities in small satellites, and local industry engagement in space technology.

Dr. Marciano is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communications Engineers of Japan (IEICE) and the ASEAN Engineers. He has received several recognitions for his teaching, research and public service, including the Gawad Chanselor Para sa Natatanging Guro (Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teacher) in UP Diliman, the Most Outstanding Electronics Engineer in the field of Education from the Institute of Electronics Engineers of the Philippines (IECEP), the 100 Outstanding Alumni Engineers from the UP Alumni Engineers (UPAE), the 2015 Manila Water Foundation Prize for Engineering Excellence, the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award in Science and Technology from the University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) and 2019 Finalist in the Dangal ng Bayan Awards of the Civil Service Commission.