Natalie Rivera is a second-year dual-major doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice and Chicano/Latino Studies at Michigan State University. She is a recipient of the Academic Achievement Graduate Assistantship (AAGA), Early Start Research Award, Hiram E. Fitzgerald fellow, and an Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) diversity fellow and scholar. She received her BA in Psychology with two minors in Criminal Justice and US Latino/a Studies from Iowa State University. She received her MS in Criminal Justice with a graduate certification in Chicano/Latino Studies from Michigan State University.
Her research interests are victimology, gender-based violence, Chicano/Latino Studies, corrections, critical criminology, and mixed methods. Her master’s thesis, “Types of Abuse and Help-Seeking: A Comparative Study of Latina Women Differing in Ethnic Identification,” examined how Latina survivors navigate systemic barriers when seeking support.
Selected Publications:
- Rivera, N., Sanders, K., & DeJong, C. (2025). The Case for Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into Criminology and Criminal Justice Doctoral Programs. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 36(1), 165–186.
