America Gaviria Pabón

América Rosario Gaviria Pabón earned her bachelor’s degree in physical sciences from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez in 2020, where she also completed meteorology coursework that shaped her interest in weather hazards and risk communication. In 2022, she earned her master’s degree in geography and environmental sustainability at the University of Oklahoma, focusing on how disaster subcultures influence Spanish speakers’ perceptions of severe weather risks. As part of her master’s research, she participated in the Graduate Visitor Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which supported her thesis work on hazards and risk communication.

Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Oklahoma. Her dissertation examines how Spanish speakers perceive the quality of weather translations—whether generated by artificial intelligence or human forecasters—and how these perceptions influence risk understanding, trust, and decision-making. She also applies phenomenology to explore how lived experiences shape how individuals interpret translated information and respond to tropical weather events. Her work aims to inform more effective and culturally responsive weather risk communication strategies for Spanish-speaking communities.

Gaviria Pabón has presented at the American Meteorological Society and the American Association of Geographers. She is a Bill Anderson Fund Fellow since Fall 2024 and a Graduate Research Assistant with the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations and the Institute for Public Policy Research & Analysis.