Biography

Dr. Fernando I. Rivera is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Puerto Rico Research Hub at the University of Central Florida. He has previously served as Interim Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Excellence, UCF Global Faculty Fellow and Provost Faculty Fellow. He has also served in different taskforces related to Accelerating Latino Student Success and Hispanic Serving Institutions. His research interests and activities are in the sociology of health/medical sociology, disasters, and race and ethnicity. His published work has investigated how different mechanisms are related to certain health and mental health outcomes with a particular emphasis on Latino populations.  His disaster research has explored the investigation of factors associated with disaster resilience, restoration and resilience in coupled human-natural systems, and climate migration. Other publications have investigated the Puerto Rican diaspora in Florida. He has co-edited Disaster Resilience: Interdisciplinary Perspective (2012), co-authored Disaster Vulnerability, Hazards, and Resilience: Perspectives from Florida (2015), and edited Emerging Voices in Natural Hazards Research (2019). He was guest editor for a special issue of Population and Environment on Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria. He is currently a guest co-editor for a special issue of Journal of Emergency Management “Analysis of Pre and Post Disaster Management and Recovery in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria”.  He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his B.A. degree in sociology from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. He also completed a NIMH sponsored post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University.