Diego is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics. His undergraduate research examined how different generations of pedagogy students perceive the ideal teacher, using Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze their self-image and social expectations. His master’s thesis in Applied Linguistics assessed the effectiveness of a task-based methodological design for teaching Chilean metaphorical expressions to Spanish L2 learners. 

His research interests include how L2 learners use metaphorical expressions, the influence of their L1 on creating new metaphors, and lexical/semantic borrowing. 

Currently, he is writing his master’s research paper on the use of determiners for "mamá" and "papá" in Chilean Spanish.