Zorimar Rivera Montes is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her research focuses on contemporary Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latinx literatures and cultures in relation to race, gender, sexualities, colonialism, and neoliberalism. Her dissertation explores the Puerto Rican cultural production under the current debt crisis in Puerto Rico. Before coming to Northwestern, she worked as an educator in Puerto Rico and an instructor at the University of Puerto Rico, where she received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from.