Dr. Rob Carlson is a Managing Director of Planetary Technologies (née Bioeconomy Capital) and a 2024 Bloomberg Green Champion. Rob is a Director at Lumen Bioscience, Colorado Biofactory, RoosterBio, and Parse Biosciences, and is a Board Observer at Tandem PV, Cyclic Materials, and SunTrain.

Rob is also an Affiliate Professor in the Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.

Dr. Carlson works at the intersection of science, technology, security, and economics. Over the last twenty-five years he has developed a number of new technical and economic metrics for measuring the progress of biological technologies and renewable energy. Carlson is the author of the book Biology is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life, published in 2010 by Harvard University Press; it received the PROSE award for the Best Engineering and Technology Book of 2010 and was named to the Best Books of 2010 lists by writers at both The Economist and Foreign Policy. He is a frequent international speaker and has served as an advisor to such diverse organizations as The Hastings Center, the PICNIC Design Festival, the UN, the OECD, the US Government, and companies ranging in size from startups to members of the Fortune 100. He was previously on the Board of Diybio.org and co-founded Science on Tap, a science cafe series in Seattle. Carlson earned a doctorate in Physics from Princeton University in 1997.

From 2020 to 2022, Dr. Carlson served as an Adjunct at the Institute for Defense Analysis. In 2012 Carlson was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, where he taught a class on developing strategy and policy in the context of rapid technological change. From 2002 to 2007, Carlson was a Senior Scientist in the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Washington. From 2003 to 2008, he provided technology analysis and strategic consulting as a Senior Associate at Bio-Economic Research Associates (Bio-era), writing extensively on pandemic preparedness, synthetic vaccines, biofuels, and biological technologies, and presenting briefings on these subjects to executives and government officials around the world. From 1997 to 2002 he was a Research Fellow at The Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, CA. Links to additional articles and a blog can be found at www.synthesis.cc.