Congratulations Dr. Héctor Rivera
MICHAEL K. YOUNGPresident
May 6, 2019
Howdy!
I am pleased to congratulate Dr. Héctor Rivera, associate professor of educational psychology, for receiving the Congressional Award's 2019 Education Champion Award. The Congressional Award — which is the highest honor bestowed upon a civilian through the United States Senate and House of Representatives — recognizes initiative, service and achievement.
Dr. Rivera excels at all three marks when it comes to supporting Texas A&M's mission of excellence in teaching, research and service.
In our College of Education & Human Development, Dr. Rivera prepares Aggie students to pursue teaching careers in bilingual education, ESL and dual language. His scholarly work has won grant awards of more than $6 million which he and his partners have used to develop youth academies, parental engagement programs, teacher academies and institutes in collaboration with school districts in Texas and other states. His scholastic work has appeared in books, peer-reviewed articles and state educational curricula for Texas, California and Florida.
Dr. Rivera's research focuses on areas of youth resilience, learning environments, and community capacity-building. His hard work has contributed to the development of programs to serve classroom leaders for the teaching and learning of diverse children. He has devoted a significant amount of his career to youth mentorship, championing educational opportunities for all children through his research on socio-emotional learning and child development.
His work has not only benefitted students across the state and nation, but also internationally through youth academies and capacity-building workshops for youth and low-income communities in Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Greenland among Inuit communities.
We could not be more proud of Dr. Rivera's work to improve educational opportunities for youth. His focus, particularly, on underrepresented and low-income populations is fully aligned with Texas A&M's land-grant and diversity missions.
Again, my congratulations to Dr. Rivera for this outstanding recognition from the U.S. Congress and for his continued efforts to better education for all people.
Sincerely,
Michael K. Young