Andrés Jaramillo-Botero earned his degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Physics from Boston University, a Master's degree in Computer Science as a Fulbright scholar at the State University of New York, and a PhD in Engineering (Molecular Dynamics) from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, completing his doctoral thesis as a Visiting Researcher at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He then did postdoctoral work in nanoscale science as a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellow in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech and at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA.

Since 2006, he has been affiliated with Caltech as a Principal Investigator and Lecturer in the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division, and as Director of the Nano and Multiscale Science area at the Institute's Materials and Processes Simulation Center. Prior to that, he held visiting researcher positions at JPL and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in robotics control.

In Colombia, he has been affiliated with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PUJ) since 1990, currently as a full professor, member of the Board of Regents, founding director of the OMICAS Research Institute (iOMICAS)—a Center of Excellence of the Rockefeller Foundation's Periodic Table of Food initiative—and founding director of the Doctoral Program in Engineering and Applied Sciences at PUJ Cali. He has been Dean of Engineering and has led multiple pioneering academic programs at PUJ.

His research focuses on elucidating nanoscale properties and phenomena through the use of physics, chemistry, computational science, and omics science based on first principles—and their application to address major challenges in health, food security, sustainability, materials, and space exploration. He has directed or co-directed projects funded by NASA, DARPA, DOE, DOD, DOT, NSF, Minciencias, Newton Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as industry leaders such as Intel, Dow Chemical, Life-Technologies, and Samsung.

Dr. Jaramillo-Botero has trained more than 150 students from undergraduate to doctoral level, published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and books, and holds multiple patents in the US, the European Union, and Colombia—some of which have been licensed to industry. He recently founded the spin-off Nanosensum LLC, focused on the rapid detection and quantification of biomarkers associated with disease, stress response, and health status (from organisms to ecosystems). He is a scientific advisor at the government and industrial levels, an international consultant, and a lecturer.