Oscar was born in Mexico and moved to Colorado at the age of eight, where he resided until he left for college. He attended Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Anthropology in 2006. While in school, Oscar became involved with a longitudinal research project focusing on the economic, social and cultural influences of health and healthcare in central Mexico.

After graduating, Oscar worked for almost two years with Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University, looking at treatment adherence and health disparities of Latino, African American asthmatic children. He arrived at the Memory and Aging Center in the winter of 2008, and since then has been coordinating Dr. Rosen's emotions research. The emotions research ranges from dementia patient's insight into their cognitive abilities to presenting cognitive tasks that evoke measurable physiological reactions.