In 1991, in partnership with several colleagues, he created the Paulo Freire Institute, PFI, and is currently serving as its founding director at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.
He has lectured throughout Latin America and the United States, and in universities in England, Japan, Italy, Spain, Tanzania, Finland, Mozambique, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Portugal, Taiwan, Korea, Sweden and South Africa.
His empirical research focuses on the impact of globalisation in Latin America, especially on higher education in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico.
He is considered one of the world's leading authorities on Latin American Studies, and the principal biographer of Brazilian philosopher and critical social theorist, Paulo Freire.
In his theoretical work, Dr. Torres has accounted for the major shifts and transformations, national and global, that deeply impacted these fields.
Another of his books, Education, Democracy and Multiculturalism: Dilemmas of Citizenship in a Global World, translated in several languages, suggested new agendas for these fields.
From 1995 until 2005 he has served as Director of the UCLA Latin American Center, an Organized Research Unit of the University of California.
In this capacity he conducted systematic research, lecturing and writing on Latin American politics and society, with a focus on Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Currently he is the founding director of the Paulo Freire Institute at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS-UCLA).