Franklin Carrero-Martinez is the Senior Director of the Science and Technology for Sustainability (STS) Program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine (NASEM). He earned his PhD in Cell and Developmental Neurobiology and a Certificate in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Over the course of his career, he has served as researcher and educator, science administrator, and science diplomat in government, academia, and NGOs. In academia, Carrero-Martinez established a strong research program aimed at understanding the brain’s self-organization principles and how to use that knowledge to manipulate brain connectivity. At the University of Puerto Rico, he earned tenure, promotion to Associate Professor, visiting scholarship to Duke, sabbatical at MIT’s Brain Institute, community service and outreach, invention disclosures, curricular reform, and awards recognizing his innovative approaches to science education for underserved populations.
In 2012, he transitioned to government service as the American Association for the Advancement of Science Roger Revelle Fellow in Global Stewardship. He served this prestigious distinction with a joint appointment between the Department of State’s Office of the Science and Technology Adviser (STAS) and NASEM. He later joined STAS and was posted to the US Embassy in Mexico City as acting Science Counselor before moving to the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering in 2014. Carrero-Martinez returned to STAS in 2016, and during this time he directed the office and served as the Department’s senior advisor on science, technology and innovation. In 2018, he joined NASEM full time in his current position with STS.