Biography
I am PhD candidate based in San Juan, Puerto Rico and my research focuses on the economic and governance structures of transport systems, as well as the power relations that shape them. My dissertation research explores how U.S. colonialism, planning policies, and business practices converge in perpetuating automobility in Puerto Rico from the mid-twentieth century to the present.
Research Interests
the politics of automobility
critical transportation geography and critical logistics studies
US empire, colonialism and infrastructures
Research Description
My research examines the structural conditions that shape transportation and mobility-related challenges by analyzing the political processes through which transport policies are conceived and implemented. I focus on the transportation politics of Puerto Rico, interrogating their entanglement with the island’s colonial political economy. My doctoral project investigates how car commerce has organized Puerto Rico’s contemporary automobility regime, with particular attention to the infrastructural role of car dealerships. Previously, my master’s research in Vieques, Puerto Rico analyzed the privatization of the ferry service and residents’ contestations within the broader context of ongoing neoliberal austerity and the legacy of militarized colonialism in producing mobility injustices.
Education
MA in Geography, UIUC
MUP in Urban Planning, Specialization in Transportation Planning, UIUC
BA in Psychology, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras
Additional Campus Affiliations
Society, Mobility and Infrastructure Lab
Latin American and Caribbean Cities Collective
External Links
Recent Publications
Cidell, J., Kayzar, B., & Pimentel Rivera, A. (2025). Evaluating the productive frictions of artist-in-residence programs in Departments of Transportation. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 139, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2024.104582
Pimentel Rivera, A. (2023). Opposing powers at the helm and the immobilities of passenger‐ferry governance in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The Geographical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12515