Ricardo Rosselló

Ricardo Antonio Rosselló Nevares (Latin American Spanish: [roseˈʝo neˈβaɾes]; born March 7, 1979) is an American former politician, businessman, neurobiologist and educator. He served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 until his resignation in 2019. In 2021, he returned to active politics by receiving 53,823 write-in votes as a congressional shadow delegation member, becoming the first Puerto Rican politician to be directly nominated. He is the son of Pedro Rosselló, a former governor of Puerto Rico and pediatric surgeon. Rosselló studied chemical engineering biomedical engineering and economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), researching adult stem cells, earned his master’s and doctorate from the University of Michigan and postdoctoral studies in neuroscience and neurobiology at Duke University.

In 2010, Rosselló founded the political advocacy group Boricua ¡Ahora Es! to advocate for changing the current political status of Puerto Rico. Rosselló supports Puerto Rican statehood. Following several years of political advocacy, Rosselló announced that he would seek the nomination of the New Progressive Party (PNP in Spanish) for Governor of Puerto Rico in 2016. After winning the New Progressive Party primary, Rosselló was elected governor in the 2016 general election, defeating five other candidates.

In July 2019, Rosselló faced widespread controversy after a group chat on the Telegram app between Rosselló and his staff was made public. The chat contained offensive language, including sexist, homophobic, and misogynistic, and elitist remarks, as well as discussions on the operation of Internet troll networks on social media. A message by one of the participants in the chat mocked the struggles faced by Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which had caused around 3,000 deaths, although this has been refuted by the author. The chat was later found to be “not original, edited, and manipulated” by an independent prosecutor. Notwithstanding, the leak led to widespread protests across Puerto Rico, with demonstrators calling for Rosselló’s resignation. On July 17, 2019, an estimated 500,000 people participated in protests in Old San Juan. Initially, Rosselló stated his intention to complete his term as governor, but he later announced that he would resign, which he did on August 2, 2019. In 2020, an independent prosecutor found that the chat was “not original, edited, and manipulated”, concluding that there was “no corruption or crime or intent of corruption or crime”. During his governorship, Rosselló was elected to be the president of the Council of State Governments (CSG), apart from being awarded the education policymaker of the year and recognized for outstanding achievements in public health.

Rossello published The Reformer’s Dilemma in 2024, a book about his political experience and challenges with reforms. The book was a finalist in the American Book Fest.

Rossello is currently the Chief Vision Officer for The Regenerative Medicine Institute, a longevity and stem cell research institute and clinic.