Luis' research interests included the ecology, evolution and conservation of mammals, with a specific focus on terrestrial species, although he studied the niche dynamics of migratory bats for his undergraduate thesis.

Luis' PhD project examined the relationship between the evolutionary history of mammalian species and their present day risk of extinction in the context of anthropogenic threats. Luis used Bayesian models in a spatially explicit setting to better understand the drivers of threat to evolutionarily distinct and data deficient species.

He is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Universidad Austral de Chile – where he continues to study the ecology, evolution and conservation of mammals.