Director Velasco is an esteemed academician with more than three decades of experience in administration and management, college teaching, research extension work, and technical assistance to various government agencies mostly in the agriculture sector. The former Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB) from 2005 to 2011 and Dean of the UPLB College of Agriculture, Dr. Velasco is currently the President of Japan-Asia Development Foundation, Inc. and a member of the Board of Trustee of the Philippine Rice Research Institute.

Currently, he serves as consultant to the Bureau of Plant Industry, LEADS Agricultural Products Inc. and LEADS Animal Health Inc; and SUMIFRU Philippines. Dr. Velasco is also a member of the Boards of ANI, Inc. and Green Energy Inc., and continues to be a moving force in the academe as Adjunct Professor at UPLB and as President Edgardo J. Angara Fellow at the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies.

In 2011, Dr. Velasco was recognized by the Department of Science and Technology as the Dioscoro L. Umali awardee for Outstanding Science Administrator, for his significant contributions in the development of UPLB’s land endowments for income generation. In 2014, he was named the Most Outstanding Alumnus by the Philippine–Australia Alumni Association of the Philippines.

Dr. Velasco earned his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Master of Science in Entomology degrees from the UPLB and completed his degree in Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Queensland in Australia, under the University of Queensland Research fellowship.

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