Biography

A.L. Rivas received a DVM degree from the University of the Republic of Uruguay (1978), a diploma in pathology from Uppsala University (1980), a MS and a PhD degree in Immunology (1986, 1992) from Cornell University, where he later obtained a second PhD degree in Education and Program Evaluation (1996). Before joining UNM (2012), he worked at the Autonomous University of Yucatan (Merida, Mexico) and North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina, United States).

Personal Statement

I have a long-term interest in interdisciplinary research. It includes but is not limited to infectious Diseases, involving both human and non-human species.

Areas of Specialty

Immunology Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Development and evaluation of biomedical methods Development and evaluation of educational programs

Languages

  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Italian

Research and Scholarship

First report of an animal model for Familial Mediterranean Fever (Rivas AL et al.. A canine febrile disorder associated with elevated interleukin-6 (IL-6). Clinical Immunol Immunopathol 64 (1): 36-45, 1992. DOI: 10.1016/0090-1229(92)90057-U) First use of flow cytometry to investigate, over time, the local immune response against intra-mammary experimental infections of dairy cows (Rivas AL et al.. Longitudinal evaluation of bovine mammary gland health status by somatic cell counts, flow cytometry and cytology. J Vet Diagn Invest 13: 399-407, 2001. DOI:10.1177/104063870101300506) First demonstration of network properties (based on actual geo-temporal and data) of epidemics affecting domestic animals (Rivas AL et al. Connecting network properties of rapidly disseminating epizoonotics. PLoS ONE 7(6): e39778, 2012. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0039778) First demonstration of infectious disease-related emergence and other properties of complex systems (Rivas AL et al. Nature and consequences of biological reductionism for the immunological study of infectious diseases. Front Immunol 8:612, 2017. DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2017.00612) First demonstration of network properties in human epidemics, based on COVID-19 related data (Rivas AL et al. Early network properties of the COVID-19 pandemic - the Chinese scenario. Int J Infect Dis 2020; 96:519-523. https://doi.org/110.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.049)