He holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures/Luso-Brazilian Studies, with an Emphasis in Applied Linguistics, from the University of California — Santa Barbara (2010), and an M.A. and a B.A. from the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (Portugal). He has been a language teacher for the last twenty years, always seeking to empower students in their efforts to reinvent themselves through language so as to build their global identities and cause global impacts.