Dr. Michelle Rivera is an international, senior-level media/communications practitioner and scholar with 16 years of combined experience conducting research and crafting award-winning publications.Previously (2015-2016), Dr. Rivera served as a postdoctoral fellow/visiting scholar at the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.As a media scholar, Dr. Rivera starts from the premise that media is one of the most powerful tools of communication that exists in contemporary society. Deploying a Critical Ethnic Studies lens within media and communication, Dr. Rivera's research challenges exclusionary practices that persistently marginalize particular ethnic and racial groups within US mainstream media and popular culture. Through her writing and teaching on Latina/o media, popular music, culture and feminist praxis, Dr. Rivera's work sheds light on the complexities of Latinidad?challenging static discourses of authenticity that have historically circulated through popular culture and that increasingly demand attention in a contemporary digital and global context.Dr. Rivera earned her PhD from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2014). She has been invited to present her research across the United Sta,EST the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Finland, Australia, and Argentina.