In 2020, Federico was awarded an AIA/ACSA Practice and Leadership Teaching Award for inventing and leading the Forensics Studio. Later that year, he received the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award from the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at South Dakota State University (SDSU).  Federico was a founding faculty member in the Department of Architecture (DoArch) at SDSU, where he helped establish the first architecture program in the history of the state. From 2013 to 2022, as an Associate Professor and the DoArch Graduate Program Director, he led the coordination of graduate and undergraduate design studios, and co-authored the design and launch of a new architecture curriculum in 2019.
 
Federico’s research on the links between the structural innovations and labor practices of the Uruguayan engineering/construction firm, Dieste and Montañez, has been published and presented in Europe, North and South America. Most recently, his work was published by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, exhibited at Cornell University, and presented at the Architectural Association in London, UK. Together with Jessica Garcia Fritz, Federico is a co-director of LAB-OR, a design practice that links design pedagogy to the asymmetric relationships between architecture and construction.