UMass Boston

Major areas & specializations: Urban anthropology, linguistic anthropology, medical anthropology, United States, Latinos, diversity, ethno-racial relations, immigration, health disparities, research methods, social networks. Other major interests: language & identity, decision-making, equity in STEM, climate equity, transdisciplinarity, public policy, documentary filmmaking.

PhD, University of Florida

• Negrón (2009) Ethnic Identification among Urban Latinos: Language and Flexibility. LFB Scholarly Publishing.
• Brinkerhoff, C., Siqueira, C. E., Negrón, R., Tracy, N., Troncoso, M.L., Sprague Martinez, L.S. (2019) "There you enjoy life, here you work": Brazilian and Dominican immigrants' views on work and health in the U.S., International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health, 16(20): 4025.
• Tawa, J., Negrón, R., Pfeffer, J. (2019) The Measurement of Interpersonal Interactions with Continuous Spatiotemporal Data: Application to a Study of the Effects of Resource Competition on Racial Group Interactions, Behavior Research Methods, Online First, September.
• Negrón (2018) Spanish as a Heritage Language and the Negotiation of Race and Intra-Latino Hierarchies in the U.S., Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language, K. Potowski, ed., Routledge
• Negrón (2018) Ethnic Identification and New York City’s Intra-Latino Hierarchy, Latino Studies, 16(2): 185-212
• Leyva, B., Allen, J.D., Hosffman, O., Tom, L.S., Negrón, R., Buesa, R., Torres, M.I. (2017) Understanding Organizational Capacity among Churches for Implementing Evidence-Based Cancer Control Programs: A Community-Engaged Approach, Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, and Research, 7(3): 517-528
• Tawa, J., Negrón, R., Suyemoto, K., Carter, A. (2015) The Effect of Resource Competition on Blacks’ and Asians’ Dynamic Social Distance Using a Virtual World Methodology, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 18(6): 761-777
• Negrón, R., Leyva-Vengochea, B., Allen, J., Hosffman, O., Tom, L., Rustan, S. (2014) Leadership Networks in Catholic Parishes: Implications for Implementation Research in Health, Social Science & Medicine, 122: 53-62
• Negrón (2014) Diversity, Multiethnicity and Latino Social Networks, Societies, 4(2): 222-239
• Negrón (2014) New York City’s Latino Ethnolinguistic Repertoire and the Negotiation of Latinidad in Conversation, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(1): 87-118

I am a socio-cultural/urban anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology. I am also an Affiliate Faculty at the Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, and the Critical Ethnic & Community Studies graduate program, and a member of the Core Team for UMass Boston's Sustainable Solutions Lab, a research institute dedicated to understanding the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations and working with them to develop sustainable and equitable solutions. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida in 2007. 

My work engages with two main themes: 

1) Part of my work is bound together by an overarching interest in the role of complex social environments on the decisions that people make for their social, economic, and physical well-being: migration and health decisions, identity negotiations, linguistic and educational choices.

2) Another part of my work is to understand ways to build relationships and bridges that make collective action possible, especially in ways that connect frontline communities to expanded forms of power. I'm interested in interaction, connection, cooperation, and knowledge integration across differences.

With a range of applications, my work bridges multiple substantive and disciplinary areas, including social network analysis, sociolinguistics, health disparities, and disparities in STEM participation. I have done research in Jamaica, Florida, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Boston. My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, and the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity.

I teach several research design and methods courses at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels, with specialties in ethnographic methods, problem-centered transdisciplinary, and mixed methods research. I co-lead along with Andrea Leverentz UMass Boston's Transdisciplinary Dissertation Proposal Development Program.

Current Projects

2020-2021  Raciti, A. (PI), A. Wiig (co-PI), and R. Negrón (co-PI). Climate Justice and the Power of Knowledge in Gloucester's Fishing Industry. Sustainable Solutions Lab. 

2020-2021  Negrón, R. (PI), Herst, R., and Raciti, A. Metro Boston Climate Adaptation & Climate Justice Stakeholder Mapping. Sustainable Solutions Lab.

2020-2022  Negrón, R. (PI), and Co-PIs M. Negrón, L. Estrada-Martínez, D. Aldrich, Socio-Political and Moral Factors in Post-Hurricane Maria Evacuation Decisions: Implications for Puerto Ricans'  Well-Being, National Science Foundation, Cultural Anthropology Program.

2020-2023  Estrada-Martinez, L. (PI) (13-person team, including R. Negrón (co-PI)), Community-driven assessment of environmental health risks in Vieques, Puerto Rico, Environmental Protection Agency.