Robert Rueda is Professor Emeritus of Psychology in Education and former Stephen H. Crocker Professor of Education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology. He earned his B.A. in psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Masters in psychiatric social work at the University of Southern California. He completed his Ph.D. in special education and educational psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at the University of California, San Diego in cross-cultural psychology. 

His research has centered on the sociocultural basis of motivation, learning, and instruction, with a focus reading and literacy in English learners, and students in at-risk conditions, and he has taught courses in learning and motivation. He has held academic positions at Arizona State University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Southern California.

Robert is a member of the National Academy of Education, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. He served as a panel member on the National Academy of Science Report on the Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education, and also served as a member of the National Literacy Panel (SRI International and Center for Applied Linguistics) looking at issues in early reading with English language learners. He recently served as the associate editor of the American Educational Research Journal (Teaching, Learning, and Human Development), and in addition, he has served on the editorial boards of several other educational journals. His most recent academic appointment was as associate dean of faculty and research at USC.