Gov. Ricardo Rosselló

About

Ricardo Rosselló Nevares is a doctor in Bioengineering and Neurobiology. He is a graduate of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in Development Economics. During those years, Rosselló Nevares began to develop an interest in community causes and became the leader of several social programs at his university. For his dedication to these causes, Rosselló Nevares was awarded the MIT Dean’s Award for Outstanding Community Service. After his baccalaureate, Rosselló Nevares continued his academic career at the University of Michigan, where he studied his master’s and doctorate in Science. After completing his doctoral studies, he completed postdoctoral studies at Duke University in North Carolina.

Rosselló Nevares began to get involved in various political campaigns at local and national level. Locally, in 2004 he was manager of the Rosselló TV initiative for the campaign to govern his father, Dr. Pedro Rosselló, in addition to directing various facets of the 2008 campaign. At the national level, he served as assistant to the Affairs advisor Hispanics for the presidential campaign of General Wesley Clark, where he also collaborated in the development of the candidate’s position on Puerto Rico.  

As part of his interest in public policy issues and government decision-making processes, in 2012 Rosselló Nevares published his first book called A Better Puerto Rico is possible , in collaboration with the Editorial of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR ), which analyzes how the condition of Puerto Rico under the current political system of the Commonwealth affects the social and economic parameters of the Island, as well as its relationship with the rest of the world.

On November 6, 2012, for the first time in the history of Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans chose statehood as a political status. On October 5, 2014, Rosselló Nevares convened the First Assembly of the Statistical People at the Dr. Pedro Rosselló Convention Center, where thousands of Puerto Ricans who favor statehood for Puerto Rico gathered. Unanimously, they passed a resolution that states that, if the New Progressive Party (PNP) prevails in the next 2016 elections, the elected governor would have the power to appoint 5 representatives and 2 senators who would be sent to the United States Congress to demand statehood for Puerto Rico, as part of its initiative to implement the Tennessee Plan.

On June 8, 2016, Rosselló Nevares prevailed in the PNP primaries and became the official candidate to aspire to the governorship of Puerto Rico by said collective in the electoral elections of November 2016. On January 2, 2017, Rossello Nevares became the governor of Puerto Rico.