RISE 2019 Conference

Cecilio Ortiz Garcia is Professor of Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. His research focuses on environmental /energy justice issues and the governance of socio-technical systems transitions. He is the author of “Airs of Injustice: How Air Pollution Affects the Health of Hispanics and Latinos in the U.S. (2004). 

In 2009, Dr. Ortiz Garcia served as Co-Principal Investigator in the project Sustainable Development for Rural Communities: Social, Health, Economic and Environmental Advances. Through this project a consortium of universities and colleges in Mexico, Canada and the United States tackled crucial issues in rural sustainability preparing a new generation of students and creating a collaborative network of researchers.

In 2015, he co-founded the National Institute of Energy and Island Sustainability of the University of Puerto Rico. This Institute is an interdisciplinary effort to connect all energy and sustainability-related research and development inside the UPR system in a convergence platform across its eleven campuses. After Hurricane Maria, and in collaboration with the Arizona State University School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Ortiz Garcia formed the RISE-Puerto Rico Platform (Resiliency through Innovation in Sustainable Energy). RISE- Puerto Rico seeks to re-design the way University-Community relations develop for more just and culturally respectful university post-disaster interventions.