My name is Danilo Trinidad Pérez-Rivera. I’m a Puerto Rican student-scientist unraveling networks: mostly neurons, sometimes people.
Please, feel free to get in touch with me.
I am particularly interested in the construction of theoretical frameworks through which the intricacies of neural circuits, cognitive development, and decision-making can be causally linked to pathological outcomes in mental health. My research interests have converged and diverged from the ends of chemistry to the depths of mathematics and the complexity of biology. At the end of the day, no one cares if you’re a chemist, a mathematician, a biologist, or whatever you may claim to be. We work together to solve problems. That’s what we really care about.
While completing my Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, I spent several years pursuing research opportunities from Computational Biology to Astrochemistry. Over time, I became more fascinated with the heuristics and biases that underlie human behavior. This problem goes beyond the confines of the brain with sociocultural aspects impacting the human nervous system to dictate at times collective dynamics.
Neuronal Network Dynamics
I’m currently continuing my training in Computational Neuroscience at the Center for Neural Science at New York University as a Computational Sciences Graduate Fellow. I am currently jointly supervised by Dr. Constantinople and Dr. Savin, understanding reference-dependent decision-making. We have leveraged hierarchical latent dynamical systems (hLDS) to uncover the structured, low-dimensional dynamics that underlie behaviorally relevant computations. By applying hLDS to population recordings, we disentangled task-specific from shared latent processes, enabling a more principled characterization of how internal states and contextual reference frames shape decision-related neural activity. A pre-print using our model is available here. We would love to hear feedback!
Epidemiology
At the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, I returned to work in mathematical epidemiology—particularly in Spanish-language contexts—through collaborations with COSACO Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rico Department of Health. As part of these efforts, I contributed to the design and implementation of the island-wide Municipal Case Investigation and Contact Tracing System (SMICRC), a decentralized surveillance network built from community and scientific collaboration. This system became the cornerstone of Puerto Rico’s COVID-19 response, reaching all 78 municipalities and enabling real-time, community-engaged epidemiological monitoring. Our work, which emphasized data transparency, rapid case investigation, and public trust, was recently published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH, 2024). We welcome insights and reflections from others working on community-centered public health infrastructure, as we move COSACO Puerto Rico towards becoming the Cooperativa de Salud Comunitaria de Puerto Rico in the coming years.
Social Network Analysis
In parallel to my current research in computational neuroscience, I continue to engage with interdisciplinary scholarship that centers Puerto Rican public life and digital mobilization. In our study of the role of social media in the 2019 Puerto Rican uprising, El Verano del 19, Dr. Christopher Torres-Lugo, Dr. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada and I examine the structure and diffusion of digital protest (#RickyRenuncia) and counter-protest (#RickySeQueda) movements. This work analyzes the decentralized emergence of grassroots political participation and the contrasting network signatures of coordinated online campaigns. We are currently working with the Fundación Rafael Delgado Márquez toward the publication of this research as part of their forthcoming edited volume, Las industrias de la comunicación en Puerto Rico, which highlights critical perspectives on media, identity, and power in the archipelago.
Math is the extremely precise use of language
to uncover consequences, not facts.
Currently enjoying the warming breeze of a Central Park Spring. (May 2025)