Dr. Marciano served as the Director General (DG) of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) from January 2020 to June 2025, a position that holds the rank of a Cabinet Secretary and serves as Presidential Adviser on Space Matters. As the founding DG of PhilSA, he led the agency’s buildout and mobilization from the ground up. Dr. Marciano is also a Full Professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman where he held the Dado and Maria Banatao Professorial Chair in Engineering. He obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications from the University of New South Wales in Australia, and held visiting scholar and postdoctoral appointments at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, and UC San Diego.

From 2014-2020, he led the development of the Philippines’ Diwata microsatellites and Maya nanosatellites, along with ground operations, data processing, calibration, and distribution activities. He has over 30 years of experience leading R&D activities, technical operations, and academe-government-industry linkages in wireless communications, radio frequency spectrum management, rural connectivity, disaster risk reduction and response, sensor networks, and space technology. In January 2023, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by Hokkaido University for distinguished contributions to advancing education and research via international exchanges.

Recently, Dr. Marciano was appointed as Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) of the University of the Philippines System, a new office providing strategic focus and direction on policy formulation, coordination, and assessment of research, technology transfer, business development and industry linkages across nine campuses of UP.