Fernando is a PhD student in the Economics department of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

His current research is focused on the effects of pharmaceutical marketing and the opioid epidemic in the US, the impacts of a school-meal program on cognitive development, and the consequences of marijuana use during pregnancy on infant health.

During his graduate studies, he spent one year at the London School of Economics, analyzing the socio-economic impacts of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Prior to his PhD, he worked as a research fellow for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC doing research on educational policies in Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Before this position, he conducted empirical research on the effects of different public interventions on labor market outcomes in developing countries.