Carlos was born in Lares, Puerto Rico in 1971. He did his high school studies at the Domingo Aponte Collazo public school and his bachelor and Ph.D. studies at the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan Campus. After two years of postdoctoral research (NIH Fellow) and one year of Research Associate work at The Ohio State University, he joint the Department of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University as an Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry. In 2012, Carlos was apointed Frank Hovorka Assistant Professor of Chemistry at CWRU and in 2013 he was awarded with the prestigious NSF Faculty CAREER Award.