Oscar has published five books in the areas of literature and the social sciences. He was born in Puerto Cortes, Honduras and attended the Kent School in Connecticut. He studied at Yale University as an undegraduate and graduate student.
In the area of international development, Oscar�s work focused on poverty alleviation programs to improve education, combat malnutrition, reduce infant mortality, and empower women in Africa, Latin America and Asia. These programs included the largest welfare program in Honduras, the social network program in Nicaragua, the successful Bolsa Alimentacao program of the Lula Administration in Brazil, the Progresa/Oportunidades social protection program in Mexico and interventions in African countries to increase women's incomes and food security, intergenerational transfers, property rights, and land reform. He has also worked extensively in environmental research on projects aimed at providing resources for farmers who live in less favored lands such as hillsides prone to degradation, deforestation and desertification, to give rural populations the tools needed to encourage the sustainable use of natural resources. He is currently working on issues related to reconstruction in the Gulf Coast after hurricane Katrina