Ricardo Antonio "Ricky" Rosselló Nevares (Latin American Spanish: [roseˈʝo neˈβaɾes]; born March 7, 1979) is a Puerto Rican former politician, businessman, neurobiologist and educator who served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 until his resignation in 2019. He is the son of Pedro Rosselló, who served as governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001.
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, 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 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. The Special Independent Prosecutor's Panel, which investigated the Telegraph scandal, submitted their evidence to the Institute of Forensic Sciences. The Institute's detailed analysis concluded that the PDF document purporting to be a transcript of the Telegram chat "is not an original, that it is not a complete document, and that it has been modified."
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. 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.
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Early life and education
Rosselló was born 1979 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Pedro Rosselló and Maga Nevares. His older brothers are Juan Óscar (b. 1971) and Luis Roberto (b. 1973). Pedro Rosselló served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. Rosselló's paternal great-grandfather, Pedro Juan Rosselló Batle, immigrated in 1902 at the age of 23 from Lloseta, Mallorca, Spain. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Duke University’s department of Neurobiology where he designed and tested a novel universal mechanism for stem cell induction that can be useful for tissue regeneration, translational therapies and in-vitro disease modelling.
Rosselló attended high school at Colegio Marista de Guaynabo. He was selected to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiads.
Rosselló earned a bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001 in biomedical engineering and economics. As a researcher in college, Rosselló focused on adult stem cell research. He received a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan.
Early career
Scientific career
Rossello worked for 15 years as a Stem Cell and Bioengineer researcher at MIT, the University of Michigan, Duke University, The University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, The Comprehensive Cancer Research Center, Ana G Mendez University, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In addition, Rosselló is a co-founder of Beijing Prosperous Biopharm, a medical
research company focused on cancer, neurodegeneration problems, diabetes, and
HIV. Rosselló worked on various drug development research.
Rosselló founded a company called Auctoritas Lab in the U.S.
Rossello’s work focused on reprogramming stem cells for humans and a variety of animals by genetic manipulation with viral vectors. Rossello and his colleagues were able to show pluripotency in vitro by generating embryoid bodies and all three germ cell lineages. Rossello has also worked on tissue regeneration, neurogenesis and biomaterials.
His work in neurobiology centered on recreating and studying the vocal learning pathway in songbirds to understand the implications for learning in humans.
Rossello was recognized as a member of the Iberoamerican Scientific and Culture Academy for his scientific achievements.
His work on “Tissue Regeneration Signaling” with mesenchymal stem cells in three-dimensions was highlighted on the Cover of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Early political involvement
Rosselló became involved in politics during the 2008 Puerto Rico gubernatorial election when his father Pedro Rosselló lost a party primary against the eventual Governor Luis Fortuño. Rosselló was a Hillary Clinton delegate to the 2008 nominating convention and an Obama delegate to the 2012 convention. In 2008, he participated in Clinton's get-out-the-vote efforts for the June 1 Puerto Rico presidential primary, appearing in her final TV ad with several Democratic political leaders, including fellow statehooder Kenneth McClintock and commonwealth's Roberto Prats and José A. Hernández Mayoral.
Following this event, Rosselló became a political commentator, writing columns for El Vocero, a daily newspaper published in San Juan, covering politics, science, healthcare and economics topics. Additionally, Rosselló appeared as a regular guest analyst in several political radio talk shows.
He published a book that depicted the accomplishments of his father's administration (1993–2001). All copies of the limited edition print were exhausted in one day. To diffuse the message, he allowed the material to be public domain and published it on the La Obra de Rosselló website for everyone to read.
In 2012, Rosselló founded Boricua ¡Ahora Es!, a political advocacy group that advocates changing Puerto Rico's current political status. The movement featured a grass-roots educational campaign, suggesting that involvement of the international community may be necessary for the United States government to take action. Boricua ¡Ahora Es! actively campaigned during the 2012 Puerto Rico status referendum.
Rosselló was accused by Bolivian author Lupe Andrade of plagiarizing her column Responsabilidad y democracia ("Accountability and Democracy"). He denied the claim and no legal action followed.
Governor of Puerto Rico
2016 gubernatorial campaign
Since 2012, Rosselló was mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate for the 2016 election cycle.
In 2013, he began organizing a group of collaborators to build what he called Plan para Puerto Rico (Plan for Puerto Rico). This plan would serve as a blueprint to deal with the economic and political problems and Puerto Rico and by being built years before a candidacy, it would represent a more complete and realistic political agenda. In 2014, Rosselló utilized his political platform to perform several protest events against the policies of the incumbent governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro García Padilla. Some of these events included a march against a proposed Value Added Tax. Rosselló described that he intended to apply a scientific approach to governance. As a part of this, he traveled to other countries and US states to study how they approached various problems in governing, such as Finland, Estonia, and Florida.
On September 19, 2015, he confirmed his intention to run for Governor of Puerto Rico in the 2016 election, and held a campaign rally the next day at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan that surpassed the previous attendance record held by Ricky Martin. At the rally, he endorsed Jenniffer González, a Republican, for Resident Commissioner.
On June 5, 2016, Rosselló won the New Progressive Party primary against incumbent Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, thus becoming the party's candidate for governor and heading to the general election against PPD candidate David Bernier. He made Puerto Rican statehood the central issue of his campaign, and views statehood as the key to economic recovery.
On November 8, 2016, Rosselló defeated five other gubernatorial candidates and was elected Governor of Puerto Rico, receiving 41% of the vote. He was sworn in on January 2, 2017.
Tenure
Upon his election, Rosselló was the second-youngest person to become Governor of Puerto Rico. On his first day as governor, Rosselló signed six executive orders. His first executive order was the OE-2017-001, decreeing a state of fiscal emergency. The second order was the OE-2017-002, which creates the COF with the intent of obtaining, maximizing and overseeing more federal funds. Rosselló signed the Permitting Reform Act (Law 19-2017) to streamline the permitting process, promoting business investment and job creation in Puerto Rico. The law consolidates multiple permits into a Single Permit and introduces the Unified Information System for online applications. Additionally, Executive Order OE-2017-003 aims to expedite permits for infrastructure projects that support citizen services and economic development. These efforts seek to improve Puerto Rico’s competitiveness and attract foreign investment. The fourth executive order, OE-2017-004, creates an interagency group of projects critical for the infrastructure, a collateral effect of the OE 2017–003. The fifth executive order, OE-2017-005, orders the implementation of the method of zero base budget for the preparation of the budget for the fiscal year 2017–2018. The last executive order Rosselló signed on his first day was the OE-2017-006; it decrees a public policy within the Government of Puerto Rico that guarantees equal pay and work for women employees He also began the process of restructuring Puerto Rico's national debt.
In 2017, Rosselló signed the Permitting Reform Act, streamlining business permitting processes on the island, and he also created the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety. In July 2017, Rosselló signed a bill that enacts regulations and makes the use of marijuana legal for medicinal use. The move goes further than the executive order issued by his predecessor which in Roselló's words, "ignored the legislative process and, following an executive order, promulgated a regulation without due discussion with all sectors and representatives elected by the people." Rosselló has stated that he intends to shrink the size of government, through reducing funding to various parts of the bureaucracy. He also started an effort on labor reform, which was revoked after differences between the governor's intended version and the version developed by the Financial Oversight and Management Board. Rosselló then tabled a second version of the plan in March 2018.
In 2017, he signed the Equal Pay Act, pushing for equal pay regardless of gender. In 2018 he signed six laws targeting the reform of the insurance industry, as a response to how insurance companies acted during recent hurricanes. In December 2017, Rosselló signed the "New Government Law", which was intended to consolidate agencies in order to improve efficiency and save capital. Rosselló stated, "the objective is to establish a platform where we can reduce a 131 agencies to 30 or 35 agencies in Puerto Rico." Rosselló’s administration brought an anti-corruption law for public administration-level reforms focusing on fraud, bribery, petty crimes and kickbacks. Rosselló signed an executive order that brought the minimum wage for Puerto Rico construction workers under government contracting from the previous minimum wage of $8.25 per hour to $15.00 per hour. Rosselló’s administration brought an anti-corruption law for public administration-level reforms focusing on fraud, bribery, petty crimes and kickbacks.
Professor
Rosselló was a professor at the Cancer and Cell Reprogramming Lab, a laboratory focusing on reprogramming cell states for cancer research, of the Metropolitan University, currently the Ana G. Méndez University. He also taught at the University of Puerto Rico’s medical sciences campus as an auxiliary professor. Rosselló is currently an adjunct professor at the George Mason University.
Telegram scandal
On July 8, 2019, screenshots of a group chat on the Telegram messaging service, which the governor belonged to, were leaked. The authenticity of these screenshots was confirmed the following day by Chief of Staff Ricardo Llerandi, who — along with several other high-ranking government officials — participated in the chat. Some on Twitter have dubbed the scandal Telegramgate.
Rosselló interrupted his vacation in France to fly to Puerto Rico and attend a press conference where he took responsibility for his part in the Telegram chat. Rosselló released a statement in which he apologized for the comments, excusing himself by explaining that he had been working 18-hour days and was releasing tension. Rosselló added that he would not resign as Governor of Puerto Rico and indicated that he did not know who leaked the chat or when it was deleted. On July 13, 2019, the entirety of the chat was made public by local news agency Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.
The screenshots were reported by El Nuevo Día as containing vulgar and homophobic comments and attacks against other politicians, such as former Speaker of the New York City Council Melissa Mark-Viverito, as well as local journalists and celebrities. Rosselló described Mark-Viverito as a "puta", Spanish for whore; Mark-Viverito responded to this soon afterwards on her Twitter account, condemning his use of the word. Several members of the New Progressive Party also condemned the governor's expressions. The transcript, released July 13, shows government officials, including Rosselló, conspiring to operate an internet troll network to discredit press, journalists and opposition politicians, according to several news sources. In one message, Rosselló jokes about shooting Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan. Allegedly, Rosselló improperly conducted public business on the chat, as one of the participants — Elías Sánchez — no longer worked directly with Rosselló. The chat has been cited as giving Sánchez an unfair advantage in his business dealings, as he was privy to internal government affairs while working for Wolf Popper, a company that does business with government agencies.
Puerto Rico's sole representative in the U.S. Congress, Jenniffer González, said that she believed Rosselló should not seek re-election as a result of the incident, but supported the idea that he should remain in office. Thomas Rivera Schatz, President of the Puerto Rican Senate, called upon Rosselló and every government official included in the chat to resign, but not before supporting the Governor's position to remain in office, and downplaying the protests calling for Rosselló's resignation as a "small" group of people that are "always protesting". Calls for his resignation were made by Democratic U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee; former governor Sila María Calderón, former governor Luis Fortuño, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and presidential contender Julian Castro, and Democratic U.S. Representative and presidential contender Tulsi Gabbard.
Post-governorship career
Since 2022, Rosselló has been a chief operating officer at the Regenerative Medicine Institute (RMI) in Costa Rica. He also teaches a topic called “Leadership in Crisis” at the George Mason University and researches on genetic manipulation of stem cells at the Ana G. Méndez University in Puerto Rico. In 2021, he received 53,823 write-in votes as a congressional shadow delegation member. Rosselló did not take a salary when elected as a write-in candidate.
Awards and honors
At MIT he was the university tennis captain and was named 2000-2001 Scholar All-America in 2001. He was awarded the Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons from JCI International for his research. During his governorship in 2019, he was elected to be the president of the Council of State Governments (CSG), awarded the Gerente de Política Pública (education policymaker of the year), and was recognized for outstanding achievements in public health.
Personal life
Rosselló was married to Natasha Marie Cervi from 2008 to 2010.
On October 14, 2012, Rosselló married Beatriz Areizaga in a ceremony held in New Orleans, Louisiana. The couple have two children: a daughter, Claudia Beatriz, and a son, Pedro Javier.
His cousin is Roy Rosselló, a singer and former member of the boy band Menudo.