Amariliz Rivera received her B.S from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez campus and her PhD from Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She did her postdoctoral training at MSKCC under the mentorship of Dr. Eric Pamer where she began the abiding theme of her research-achieving a better understanding of how the immune system fights fungal infections. After her training, she moved to Rutgers where she is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and member of the Center of Immunity and Inflammation. Her work through the years has delineated fungus-specific CD4 T cell responses and monocyte-, monocyte-derived dendritic cell- and neutrophil-mediated innate antifungal immune responses in the context of pulmonary fungal disease. Most recently, her work has uncovered an unexpected of IFN-?s as critical instructors of antifungal neutrophil responses via monocyte-derived type I interferon production in the infected lung. Her career has benefited significantly from the NIH efforts to support diversity training and has been the recipient of multiple awards under the NCI-CRCHD-Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE). Her research is currently supported by NIAID and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease award.
- Title
- Associate Professor and Associate Director
- Area of Study/Expertise
- Fungal Infections
- riveraam@njms.rutgers.edu