Dr. Octavio Francisco González Castillo earned his degree as an Industrial Biochemical Engineer and his Master’s in Chemical Engineering at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), a Mexican institution where he has worked as a professor and researcher since 1986. His curiosity about how to integrate the social, economic, political, and environmental dimensions into the life cycle of production systems led him to pursue doctoral studies in engineering. He completed them in 2008 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) with the dissertation “Design of a planning instrument to incorporate sustainability-oriented approaches in system evaluation.”

By 2025, he had spent 37 years guiding the learning process of between 5,000 and 7,000 biotechnology students across 104 quarterly cohorts (around 200 courses), which also included the development of about 1,000 capstone projects. At the graduate level, he has served on the examination committee for 23 master’s students and 4 doctoral candidates in the Environmental Sustainability area of the Graduate Program in Sciences and Arts for Design. He has personally supervised the theses of four master’s students and two doctoral students.

Since 1988, he has collaborated in continuing education as both lecturer and organizer of several courses and diploma programs. In these, he has worked to connect the fields of project design and evaluation with environmental biotechnology and sustainability in socio-ecosystems. He has taught more than 950 hours of classes in 48 professional development programs, participated in 91 national and international conferences, and published around 50 academic works, including articles, book chapters, and books.

He has also taken part in and coordinated diverse research projects. From 2023 to 2026, he serves as a member of the National System of Researchers (SNII) of the Secretariat of Humanities, Sciences, Technologies, and Innovation (Secihti). Over the years, he has held honorary positions and received distinctions related to socio-ecosystem sustainability: first place in the professional category of the SERFIN Environmental Award (1992); member of the Federal Government’s Sustainable Development Advisory Council (2005–2007); President of the Regional Development Management and Sustainability Chapter of the Administrative Sciences Academy (2006–2012); General Coordinator of UAM’s Institutional Plan for Sustainability (Pihasu, 2007–2009); and member of Mexico City’s Council for Sustainable Urban Development (2008–2009).

The complexity and dynamism of sustainability phenomena in socio-ecosystems convinced him that research in this field requires a continuous learning process and collaborative work that transcends disciplinary boundaries. Since then, he has founded four interdisciplinary teams.