Dr. Orta's research lives at the intersection of education practice, policy and sociology. Drawing partly from his own personal experiences as a first-generation Latino student, his work seeks to address social inequalities embedded in the urban education system. Previously, his work focused on the Latine college student experiences in higher education with exclusion. In his current projects, he is exploring the strategies in public education for diversifying the teacher workforce and for recruiting teachers to the high-needs schools that serve primarily students of color in Chicago.