Associate Professor, Education
Arriving at Santa Clara University in 2001, Pedro has focused his teaching on technology integration in K-12 environments. His research interests are in K-12 teachers’ technology integration and pedagogical applications of games and simulations. His most recent work examined how online simulations about natural disasters (the Haiti Earthquake) and poverty can be used to generate greater empathy and understanding for others. His current research project looks at Virtual Reality (VR) as a learning option for complex science subjects like climate change.
Pedro is currently serving as Program Director of the SEMILLA Fellowship, our largest scholarship program, and as the Faculty Coordinator for Abriendo Puertas, a partnership with the Thriving Neighbors Initiative of the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education that supports mothers’ work at home to advance their children’s early literacy and numeracy.
Born in New Orleans, LA, Pedro grew up in Mexico where he received a BA from Universidad Iberoamericana (a Jesuit institution) in Mexico City. He then went on to earn a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research at Stanford University. His first job after the doctorate was as an Assistant Editor for the International Encyclopedia of Communications, a joint project of the Annenberg School for Communications of the University of Pennsylvania and Oxford University Press.
Back in California, he spent two years working as a consultant on usability research for high tech companies including Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. In 1991 he joined Apple Computer as the Education Manager for Latin America & Caribbean, then served as Education Business Development Manager for Apple Pacific, and finally as the Research Manager for the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) program. He also held education marketing positions at Acer America and Cisco Systems, as well as Director of Market Development for the IMS Global Learning Consortium, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating technical standards for online, distributed learning.
Go to Pedro's SCU Scholar Commons page to get access to his publications.