Keishla (Kay-shla) Rivera-Lopez is a writer, poet, and scholar. She currently teaches as a lecturer in Effron Center for the Study of America. She received a Ph.D. in American studies at the Graduate School-Newark at Rutgers University where she was awarded the 2019-20 Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship to finish her dissertation project titled “Writing Freedom: Puerto Rican Women’s Literary Conceptualizations of Motherhood and Memory Beyond Archives.” She received her B.A. in Latino and Hispanic Caribbean studies and American studies in 2015 from Rutgers University-New Brunswick where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. She was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey to Puerto Rican migrants and reflects on what it means to be a child of diaspora in her scholarship and writing. Currently, Rivera-Lopez is a NEH postdoctoral research associate in American studies at Montclair State University where she launched the “New Jersey Latino Experiences During The Covid-19 Pandemic” oral history project and is working on her book manuscript, “Boricua Projects.”