He returned to Caracas and worked as a dean at ProDiseño, one of the most awarded design schools in Latin America. He then traveled to New York City to work on Computational Linguistics with New York University’s linguist, Ray C. Dougherty.  As a visiting scholar at NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, Este conducted a research project on the interrelation of Charles S. Peirce’s concept of sign replication and Marshall McLuhan’s media theories, this under the guidance of rhetorician Neil Postman, the founder of Media Ecology.