Dr. Felix E. Rivera-Mariani,
PhD
Assistant Professor
Education and Training
B.S. in Biology | Southeastern Louisiana University | Hammond, La
Ph.D. in Microbiology | University of Puerto Rico – Medical Sciences Campus | San Juan, PR
Post-doctoral Fellowship in Environmental Health Sciences
Bloomberg School of Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore, MD
Specializations
Science Teaching Fellow – American Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC
Data Science – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Executive Data Science – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Genomic Data Sciences – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Mastering Software Development in R – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Systems Biology – Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, New York, NY
Bioinformatics – University of California at San Diego
Teaching Interests
Dr. Rivera-Mariani teaching interests include various courses, such as Biochemistry, Immunology, Medical Microbiology, and Molecular Genetics. In his teaching, Dr. Rivera-Mariani employs active and evidence-based learning approaches complemented with technological methodologies.
Scholarly Interests
Dr. Rivera-Mariani’s research goals are directed towards developing and implementing human-based immunological approaches that can provide physiologically-relevant information (i.e. protein and gene profiles) from human exposures to airborne pollutants of different chemical origins. Dr. Rivera-Mariani interphases his expertise in immunology, aerobiology, computational biology and data science to address respiratory health risks from air pollutions at different environmental settings. His research efforts have been awarded nationally and internationally at difference scientific conference, as well as being funded by the National Institute of Health and private non-profit organizations. He has also been invited to share his research findings at national and international conferences. At Larkin University, he is the Principal Investigator of the RIPL_Effect (Respiratory and Immunology Project at Larkin) Research Group (http://www.friveram.com/RIPL_Effect/). His research group was recently invited to collaborate in investigating respiratory health risks of occupants of flooded houses in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of hurricane Maria, which affected the island of Puerto Rico in the fall of 2017.
Research Foci:
Addressing the human respiratory health following exposure to airborne biological pollutants motivates my research. I have followed this line of research by merging human-based immunological approaches with aerobiology, molecular and computational biology. Following extensive postdoctoral training at the Bloomberg School of Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University, I linked epidemiology into my research to address non-experimental variables that may influence human respiratory health. This integrated approach has led to biochemically depicting previously uncharacterized potent airborne allergens endemic in the atmosphere of the Caribbean basin and highly pro-inflammatory microbial compounds of non-bacterial origins. My line of research has also found that these compounds pose a high respiratory burden among susceptible individuals, such as those with asthma, respiratory allergies, and other chronic respiratory diseases.
I am also a strong supporter of reproducibility and mentoring opportunities in science. Not only the experimental aspect but also the data analysis must be reproducible. For this reason, I employ code-based computational approaches in different computer languages (R, Python, Matlab) to extract the scientific story the data tries to communicate and thus make it available for others to replicate the data analysis pipeline. The data-driven mindset, combined with the experimental approaches, permits mentoring of students in the different epicycles of scientific research.
Publications:
Science Teaching Publications
Published Abstracts
Presented Abstracts
Invited Talks
Awards, Honors, and Editorial Activities
2018 Collaborator – NIH Grant 1R21ES029761-01 (PI. Humberto Cavallin)
2013 Collaborator – NIH Grant 3R01ES018845-04S1 (PI. Nadia Hansel)
2013 Carl Storm Minority Travel Award – Gordon Conference, Galveston, TX
2012 Lush Young Researcher Award – Ethical Consumer Association, London, UK
2012 New Researcher Travel Award – International Society for Exposure Science
2012 Fellows-in-Training Award – American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology
2011 David Leslie Swift Award – Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health
2011 Minority Access to Research Award – Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
2010 Fellows-in-Training Award – American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology
2010 Young Aerobiologist Award – International Association for Aerobiology
2010 – 2014 Professional Developmental Committee – National Postdoctoral Association
2006 Ad Hoc Committee – Puerto Rico Legislature (Law of the Regional Medical Academic Centers)
2005 – 2009 President – General Student Council, UPR – Medical Science Campus
2005 – 2009 Academic Senate (Ex Officio) – UPR – Medical Science Campus
Editorial Activities
2017 – Present Reviewer and Judge – ABRCM Annual Conference
2017 – Present Reviewer – Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine
2015 – Present Reviewer – Conrad Spirit Innovation Challenge
2015 – Present Reviewer – Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase
2013 Editor – Journal of Postdoctoral Research
2011 – Present Reviewer – SACNAS National Conference
2011 – Present Reviewer – Aerobiologia
Professional Membership
2017 – Present American Association of University Professors
2012 – Present Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
2011 – Present American Association for Immunologists
2011 – Present Society for Toxicology
2010 – Present American Association for the Advancement of Science
2009 – Present American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
2002 – Present American Society for Microbiology