Professor De La Piedra earned his B.A. and M.A. in Spanish from the University of Missouri.

In the vast Spanish-speaking world, Professor De La Piedra has spent the most time in Ecuador, México and Perú.

Since Professor De La Piedra was a child, Spanish has been part of his life. At the age of nine he moved to Ecuador where his uncle "Tío Rodrigo" taught him the grammatical foundation of the language and basic high frequency vocabulary. As a college student he studied one year at La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. Beginning in 2018, he spent four years at SPC working as an Adjunct Spanish Professor, followed by a brief Acting Professorship before joining the college's faculty as a Full-time Spanish Professor in August 2022. The bedrock of his student-centered teaching style is the belief that Spanish is a beautiful language that is fun to share with others.

Professor De La Piedra's academic interests focus on Mexican history, culture and colloquial expression. More specifically, he examines the way in which the language itself, the words of everyday conversation, can be a conduit through which students learn about the culture of native speakers. In 2023 he published his first peer-reviewed article in SCOLT's (Southern Conference on Language Teaching) annual scholarly journal Dimensions. The paper focuses on the story of mothers and motherhood in Mexico, and the unique dual value the word la madre [mother] has in Mexican Spanish. 

Copy and paste the following URL to see the last 20+ volumes of Dimensions. Professor De La Piedra's article is chapter 3 of the 2023 volume.

https://www.scolt.org/scolt-dimensions-volumes/

APA Reference:

De La Piedra, G. (2023). Word Analysis: Contemplating the word La Madre to develop an approach for the instruction of
        cultural perspectives. Dimensions, 58, 56-75.

Professor De La Piedra's second peer-reviewed article was published in the 2025 volume of Dimensions. This manuscript discusses the use of free listing interviews to gather data about a cultural topic directly from a targeted group of native speakers. While seldom used in the field of Foreign Language Education, the free listing research method is widely used in academic fields like Cultural Anthopology and Sociolinguistics. The cultral topic of the 2025 publication is fiestas y celebraciones [parties and celebrations], and the targeted group of respondents is working-class Mexicans.

Copy and paste the following URL to see Dimensions 2025, where Professor De La Piedra's article is chapter 2.

https://www.scolt.org/scolt-dimensions-volumes/

APA Reference:

De La Piedra, G. (2025). Demonstrating a free listing data collection approach to cultural instruction. Dimensions, 60, 30-55.

Outside of academia, Professor De La Piedra enjoys spending time with his wife, two daughters and their family of Maltese dogs. He also loves reading, fishing, playing pool, yard work, Rays baseball and Kansas City Chiefs football.