Prior to that, he was Liew Family professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and has served as senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

[2] In 2018, he was appointed Vice President for National Laboratories at the University of Chicago,[2] a title which later expanded to include Science Strategy, Innovation and Global Initiatives in 2020.

[3] In 2021, he became Executive Vice President for Science, Innovation, National Laboratories and Global Initiatives at the University of Chicago.

De Pablo conducted his postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.

[8] He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for design of macromolecular products and processes via scientific computation.