Philippine Standard Time

Friday 16th of April 2021

Officials

JOEL JOSEPH S. MARCIANO, JR., PhD

Director General

Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA)

Dr. Joel Joseph S. Marciano Jr. was appointed as the first Director General (DG) of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) in January 2020, where he is now leading the buildup and mobilization of the newly created national government agency. As PhilSA DG, Dr. Marciano holds the rank of a Department Secretary and provides executive direction and supervision over the entire operations of the PhilSA and its attached units. Immediately prior to the PhilSA, Dr. Marciano served as the Director of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI). He is also a Full Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) where he held the Dado and Maria Banatao Professorial Chair.
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; and 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. He served as the Director of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute (EEEI) of UP Diliman from 2009 to 2015 and 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) from 2013-2016. 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 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 50 Men and Women of Science from the DOST, 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.

Dr. Gay Jane P. Perez

Deputy Director General

Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA)

Dr. Perez was appointed as Deputy Director General (DDG) of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) in January 2021. She is on secondment from the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology of the University of the Philippines Diliman, where she is currently an Associate Professor and holds the title of Scientist II.
As PhilSA DDG, Dr. Perez holds the rank of a Department Undersecretary and handles the Space Science and Technology (SST) portfolio at the agency.
As DDG-SST, she assists the Director General in planning, directing, managing, implementing, and assessing programs relating to space science & technology and applications (SSTA), especially internal and collaborative research and development activities that spur rapid scientific growth and national development. The DDG-SST shall directly supervise the following organizational units within the PhilSA:
  1. Space Technology Missions and Systems Bureau
  2. Space Science Missions Bureau
  3. Space Education and Scholarships Division
Before her PhilSA appointment, Dr. Perez was the program leader of the Sustained Support for Local Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation and Advancement (STAMINA4Space) program and led the continuing activities on microsatellite development in the Philippines. Prior to this, she led the science team responsible for the DIWATA-1 and DIWATA-2’s mission planning, operations, and remote sensing product development under the PHL-Microsat program. Also, she was the project leader and project staff of ongoing projects Drought and Crop Assessment Forecasting (DCAF) Phase 2 of Program Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture in the Philippines (SARAI) Phase 2 and Understanding Lightning and Thunderstorm (ULAT), respectively. 
She has led various projects that utilized satellite and remotely sensed data for environmental applications and climate studies starting in 2013 with Weather Information-integration for System Enhancement (WISE) (2013-2015), Fish Mapping Using Space Technology (FishMUST) (2013-2015), DCAF Phase 1 (2013-2016), Soil Moisture Studies in the Philippines Using Satellite Remote Sensing in 2013, Changes in Philipine Forest Cover Based on Landsat-derived Global Forest Cover Dataset (2000-2012) in 2015, Coral Reef Visualization and Assessment (CorVA-9) (2015-2017), and Site Suitability Assessment for Mussel (SSAM) (2016-2018).
Dr. Perez is a recipient of The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service (TOWNS) Award (2019) and is the first Filipina to receive the ASEAN-US Science Prize for Women (2018). 
She was a postdoctoral fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2010-2011). She is a graduate of the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines Diliman, from which she received Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, in 2003, 2005, and 2009, respectively. Her research interests include Earth observation satellite product development, drought monitoring and forecasting, forest change detection, land cover/land use change, other satellite remote sensing applications for the environment, seasonal and climate prediction, climate change and variability, complex systems, and interdisciplinary applications of Physics.