Dr. Rivera is an Assistant Professor in the Simons School of Education and Human Development. He obtained his doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2001. He received a post-doctorate fellowship from the Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence (CREDE) at the University of Houston. After his post-doctoral training, Dr. Rivera worked as a research assistant professor and scientific advisor at the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics (TIMES) and Department of Psychology at the University of Houston.  

His research is focused on child and community development, classroom learning environments, resilience, studying the efficacy of school programs, and teacher professional development in urban and rural settings. He has worked on curriculum development with Harcourt and Steck-Vaughn publishers to co-author the "California Gateways" curriculum. He has published in several research journals on topics pertaining to ELL Newcomers, Hispanic resilience, assessment and accommodations for ELLs and research-based interventions for ELLs. Currently, he is collaborating in research projects with multiple districts in North Texas as well as conducting international research and program development in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, El Salvador and Greenland. Some of these programmatic and research efforts are focused on community development (e.g., health literacy, parent/child literacy programs), capacity building (e.g., teacher professional development, leadership development) and socio-cultural studies for child and community development in cultural context.

Diana L. Madrigal-Hopes, is the Research Associate for the Newcomer/ESL Certification Program at Southern Methodist University. Her specialties are in literacy and second language learning. Prior to coming to SMU, she was a Lecturer for the University of North Texas in the Department of Teacher Administration and Education. She served as the Program Coordinator for Bilingual/ESL and Migrant Education at Region 10 Education Service Center. She began her career in bilingual and ESL education at United ISD, Laredo, Texas before joining Richardson ISD in 2002. She earned her master’s degree in Bilingual Education from Southern Methodist University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction at Texas A&M Commerce University. Mrs. Hopes is a presenter at local, state, and national conferences on topics relating to Bilingual and ESL education. She has served as chair for the Special Interest Group - Elementary Education for the National Association of Bilingual Education (NABE). She co-founded and currently serves as co-chair in the Special Interest Group - English Language Learner Newcomer/Recent Immigrant for NABE.

José Ramos is a Graduate Research Assistant at Southern Methodist University. He is a native of Laredo, Texas and has resided in the Dallas area since he was eight years old. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Crime & Justice Studies from the University of Texas at Dallas he made a career shift into teaching due to the deterring effect that a high quality education can have on juvenile delinquency. He obtained his Master's in Educational Administration from Texas A&M-Commerce University. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Southern Methodist University.