Francisco L.  Rivera-Batiz is an associate professor of economics and education. In addition to his duties a Direcetor of the Latino Studies Program, he is also Director of the Program in Economic Policy Management at SIPA.

Rivera-Batiz, 42, received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. He has previously held teaching or research positions at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, and other institutions. He has received postdoctoral fellowships from the Ford Foundation in 1982-83 and Educational Testing Service in 1988-89.

Born in Puerto Rico, Rivera-Batiz has written extensively on the Puerto Rican population both in the island and the mainland United States. His recent work on the Puerto Rican economy appears in the book Island Paradox: Puerto Rico in the 1990s, published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1996 and co-authored with Carlos Santiago. He also co-authored the book, Puerto Ricans in the United States: A Changing Reality, published by the National Puerto Rican Coalition in 1994.

Rivera-Batiz has carried out research on the various Latino populations in the United States. He is one of the co-authors of the monograph, Dominican New Yorkers: A Socioeconomic Profile, published by the City College Dominican Studies Institute in 1995. His paper, "The Declining Socioeconomic Status of the Mexican Population in the United States, 1980-90" was published by the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Columbia's Teachers College in 1994.

Rivera-Batiz sees education as the major force determining economic progress. This is not surprising. Being also a faculty member at Teachers College, Rivera-Batiz is immersed in a number of educational issues, having recently served as an advisor to the Board of Education of New York on policies to foster educational improvement. He has also served as an advisor in education issues in Argentina, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. His edited book, Reinventing Urban Education, was published in 1994.

"Latinos are one of the fastest-growing populations. This has led to increased geographical dispersion, which is one of the key forces coalescing the Latino experience in the country," said Rivera-Batiz of the  27 million Latinos in the United States, including close to 2 million in New York City. Although there is diversity of experience, Rivera-Batiz observes that Latinos have been suffering from a deterioration in socioeconomic status in the nineties: "Latinos have now the highest poverty rate in the nation, compared to other ethnic and racial groups. It is a situation of deep concern."

Close to 40 percent of the Latino population in the United States was born outside the nation. "Immigration and immigration policy are therefore two of the most important topics for Latinos in the United States," says Rivera-Batiz. An expert on immigration policy, his publications in this field include the co-edited book, U.S. Immigration Policy Reform in the 1980s: A Preliminary Assessment, published by Praeger Publishers in 1991. His paper, "The Education of Immigrant Children: The Case of New York City," was published last December as a working paper by the International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship at the New School for Social Research. He is currently involved in researching the working conditions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.