Library of RISE Foundational Documents

Building Resilience in Puerto Rico

In the wake of Hurricane Maria, how can Puerto Rico become more resilient and serve as an example and an inspiration to other communities? 
 
This is the question that prompted Puerto Rico native and KieranTimberlake Associate Fátima Olivieri to travel to the island in June of 2018. Thanks in large part to her efforts, this query also set the framework for KieranTimberlake’s initiatives on the island for the past year and a half. 

Puerto Rico: Maria’s Laboratory for Scientific Collaboration

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, Ubaldo Córdova-Figueroa’s primary concern was for the safety of his students and research assistants. With communications shut down, it took over a month for the professor of chemical engineering at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez to contact them all. “Having no access to my students or my research-lab members was very painful because I didn’t know what was going on with them. I just wanted to know that they were fine,” he says. Everyone was okay but became anxious when research was interrupted for months. Córdova-Figueroa had to reassure them that it was okay, to relax, and wait for things to return to normal. It was, after all, a catastrophe.

RISE Conference 2019

Join universities and colleges from across the nation for a three day conference that will explore how higher education can strengthen preparedness, response, and recovery in the face of growing threats posed by a changing climate and extreme weather as we strive to build a national platform.

PUERTO RICO RISE(ing) Workshop Summary

This workshop was designed to facilitate a different kind of conversation – one focused
primarily on constructing long-term relationships built on the multi-directional flow of
knowledge, resources, and capacity between universities and communities.