Rob arrived at OSU in 2014, as Associate Professor of Philosophy. Upon his arrival to OSU he was awarded the honor of Inaugural Resident Scholar of Engagement for the Center for Latin@ Studies and Engagement (CL@SE). Largely the result of his upbringing that juxtaposed the maritime culture of the Jersey Shore with industrial urban poverty and colonial Latinx diaspora, he committed his philosophical acumen to practical scholarship; in particular, Environmental Justice Studies.

His influential work is due to the generosity of many students and colleagues from leading interdisciplinary departments and centers. Together they fostered Rob's professional development including the introduction of the first college philosophy course in Environmental Justice. He has over two decades of promoting environmental justice pedagogy within the emergence of the Environmental Justice Studies and areas of Environmental Humanities.

In early publications, Rob established early recognition justice positions in environmental justice, transforming the debates of distributive justice with new dimensions of recognition and restorative justice lodged in his work on Latinx perspectives to advance expanding the conceptions of justice regarding identity, heritage, cultural perception and status, and alternative strategies to remedy environmental injustices at multiple scales. At the same time, in collaboration with Michael Glantz at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, led to the initiation of environmental justice arguments to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee. The first of its kind, using multiple dimensions of environmental justice consider the Aral Sea in Central Asia as a World Heritage site. 

Science and Other Cultures

Rob has also collaborated on advancing diversity in the study of science and technology in society. With Sandra Harding (UCLA), he co-edited Science and Other Cultures: Issues in the Philosophies of Science and Technology, which was one of the major products of their NSF grant to the American Philosophical Association. 

A large part of his current transdisciplinary research continues to be with Latinx communities in the US; in addition to, indigenous populations addressing joint-management of National Parks and environmental heritage, as well as displaced populations in terms of environmental and climate displacement and relocation, including resettlement camps and communities. He consistently draws upon relational ethics of environmental identity, heritage, cultural continuance, and restorative justice.

Rob has extended environmental identity to critical disability studies, especially regarding autism, environmental-political advocacy, and critical empathy. He has also co-authored several articles with Gordon Waitt (University of Wollongong), establishing their moral ecological framework for environmental justice described in terms of moral terrains. Their primary work includes critical tourism studies supporting the Anangu People in the their struggle to end the disrespectful tourist climb on Uluru. In 2019, 26 October, the Anangu did indeed close the climb in the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia. Rob and Gordon have also analyzed the moral terrains on Mantague Island, NSW Australia, where paying tourists in the name of science-tourism expect to closely observe the exceptionally protected little penguins.