Dr. Rivera is the Medical Director of the Hearing and Balance Center at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. As a Diplomate in Neurotology of the American Board of Otolaryngology, his areas of clinical and surgical interest are the cranial base and conditions that affect hearing and balance. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and served in the Navy where he completed his residency training at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, followed by a neurotology fellowship at Northwestern University. During his residency training, and while caring for our wounded warriors, he was exposed to complex trauma to the skull base and inner ear, which gave him a unique perspective of this anatomy and the surgical interventions to reconstruct it. This experience motivated him to pursue a path as a neurotologist/cranial base surgeon.

Dr. Rivera has a prolific skull base practice caring for patients with complex tumors and pathology. As the only implantable hearing devices surgeon at the University of Missouri, he cares for patients of all ages in mid-Missouri.

His active research practice includes, among others, new vistas in the pharmacological management of dizziness, facial nerve palsy and single-sided deafness. Throughout his career, Dr. Rivera has published multiple peer-reviewed papers, presented at national and international meetings and contributed to several books.