Ricardo Gabriel earned his PhD in Sociology from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York in 2023. His work focuses on radical Puerto Rican politics in the United States, anti-/decolonial education, and on movements for environmental and climate justice. Ricardo’s dissertation explores the role of counter-narratives and critical education in struggles for decolonization and social justice by examining the movement for Puerto Rican studies at The City University of New York during the 1960s and 1970s. The project is based on archival research and original oral histories with former students and scholars who helped establish Puerto Rican studies. Ricardo is continuing this work post-dissertation by studying current popular education efforts to advance Puerto Rico’s decolonization, as well as initiatives for Black and Latinx studies at the K-12 levels. His second line of research focuses on the connections between movements for environmental and climate justice in the northeastern region of the United States and the Caribbean. He has written for NACLA: Report on the Americas, and in 2019 he wrote the forward for Caribbean Connections: Puerto Rico, 3rd Edition, an interdisciplinary curricular guide with readings and lessons on Puerto Rico and social justice for high school teachers, published by Teaching For Change.  
 
As an educator, Ricardo seeks to create spaces of self-reflection and collaborative learning. His approach to teaching is based on critical and ethnic studies pedagogies that are culturally responsive, intersectional, and committed to community engagement. Prior to joining Trinity College, he taught at Fordham University and at The City University of New York.  

• Dissertation Fellowship, Inter-University Program for Latino Research/UIC Mellon Fellowship Program, 2021-2022
• Dissertation Fellowship, Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC), CUNY Graduate Center, 2021-2022
• Early Research Initiative Knickerbocker Award for Archival Research in American Studies, CUNY Graduate Center, 2019
• Consciousness and Revolution II Dissertation Fellowship, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, CUNY Graduate Center, 2017-2018