Maria Patricia Rivera, M.D.

Dr. Rivera is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine. She joined the faculty at URMC in April 2022 as the C. Jane Davis & C. Robert Davis Distinguished Professor in Pulmonary Medicine and the Chief of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, and the Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wilmot Cancer Institute. Her expertise includes screening, diagnosing, and staging lung cancer and managing treatment complications.

Professional Background

Dr. Rivera lived in Cuba and Colombia before emigrating to the United States, spending her early years in New York. She graduated Summa cum laude from Pace University with a BS in Biology in 1981 and then attended Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, New York receiving her M.D. in 1985. She completed her Internal Medicine internship and residency training at North Shore University Hospital. She completed a fellowship training in Pulmonary Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Critical Care Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and North Shore University Hospital in 1992. She served as Chief Resident of the Internal Medicine Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

From July 1989 to June 1990. Following her fellowship training, she was recruited as an Assistant Attending in the Department of Medicine/Pulmonary Division at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Clinical Assistant Professor at Cornell University Medical College. In 1995, Dr. Rivera joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, was promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine in 1998 and ascended to the rank of Professor of Medicine with Tenure in 2012. At UNC, Dr. Rivera co-founded the first Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program (MTOP) in the country, a premier program that became the model for multidisciplinary care and defined the vital role pulmonologists play in caring for patients with thoracic malignancies. In 2015 she founded and directed the Multidisciplinary Lung Cancer Screening Program at UNC. While at UNC, she held numerous leadership positions, including Co-director of MTOP, Director of the Lung Cancer Screening Program, Co-Director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program, Director of Clinical Operations, Director of the UNC-Rex Pulmonary Practice, and Director of the Pulmonary Function and Bronchoscopy Laboratory.

National Leadership

For more than 20 years, Dr. Rivera has served and held leadership positions on National Pulmonary and Critical Care and Cancer societies, including the American Thoracic Society (ATS), The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), and the American Cancer Society National Lung Cancer Round Table. She is currently the President-Elect of ATS and will serve as President of the Society from May 2023 to May 2024.

Research