From El Salvador to Austin, Alumna Katia Rivera ‘25 Prepares to Improve the Systems Serving our Communities
Katia Rivera knows what it looks like when a community is transformed. From a new road cut through red dirt, a well where there wasn’t one, or a house lit by electricity instead of candles, she witnessed it all while growing up in El Salvador, and it left an impression she has never let go of.
Now, with a Rotary Global Grant Scholarship and a place in the Brussels School of Governance’s Master of Arts in Global Security and Strategy program, she’s preparing to do that work herself.
Navigating Cultures, Customs and Schools in a New Country
Rivera came to St. Edward’s University in Fall 2020, drawn in by something she had been chasing since middle school: a room full of people who didn’t look like her. As a private university, St. Edward’s could offer her financial aid regardless of her green card status, and the intimacy of a small green campus sealed the deal. She declared her major in Global Studies, now known as International Affairs, with a concentration in International Conflict, Cooperation and Security.
That hunger for difference had roots.
Rivera left El Salvador alone at 12, like many Central American children did, fleeing political and gang violence with little more than a backpack. She eventually made it to Austin, where she reunited with her mother. She began middle school at a charter school, where she spent her lunch hour on an iPad learning English and became fluent within two years.
Determined to attend a high school that would surround her with students from different backgrounds, Rivera found the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, LASA, a prestigious Austin magnet school. There, she took courses that challenged her, such as physiology, anatomy and Chinese, a choice that expanded the way she saw the world. Here, she was a member of the C5 Youth Foundation of Texas, where she learned to see leadership as a community-driven process and not as individual success. C5 reminded Rivera of what she knew in El Salvador: resilient communities are made when members have the right tools, a voice and are trusted and supported to shape their futures.
“It really opened up my mind, which then allowed me to consider international affairs and pursue college afterwards,” Rivera said.
At LASA, she also found Aaron Wheatley ‘26, who became a lifelong friend and, eventually, something closer to family. As a first-generation student navigating the American school system, Rivera found support from the Wheatley family.
“We were both at a time when (high school) was very difficult to navigate. We found a lot of comfort with each other and definitely a lot of security and safety,” Wheatley said. “So that's how she ended up essentially becoming a part of my family.”
Once the pandemic hit, Rivera finished her schooling online and graduated from high school in 2020. She convinced Wheatley to transfer from Texas State University and join her on the Hilltop, and Wheatley graduated a year after Rivera with a degree in Biochemistry.
Creating Her Campus Community
College also gave Rivera the space to work through something she’d been quietly navigating for years: the tension between assimilation and identity.
“It wasn’t until college that I started little by little, but very carefully and scared, to incorporate myself into the first-generation and Hispanic community, but I was very apprehensive,” said Rivera.
St. Edward’s became the place where that changed. Rivera joined the International Student Association and eventually stepped into a leadership role.
She saw leading ISA as a responsibility to ensure every student in that space felt they belonged. She began creating dialogue, planning events and helped return vibrancy to campus as the university recovered from the pandemic.
“We have a lot of diverse students on campus, and we need to let them know that we see them,” Rivera said. “We are all in college, and we all have very interesting backgrounds that we can enjoy from each other instead of seeing only the differences.”
She didn’t stop at creating community in conversation; she built it into an event.
Inspired by a cultural showcase hosted by St. Edward’s partner school, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, Rivera brought a similar small-scale showcase to the hilltop, supported by the staff in International Student Services. Planning the International Cultural Showcase and seeing it on paper were the moments when she felt a part of the community. The event continues today, inviting St. Edward’s students, alumni, and staff from around the world to share their food traditions and stories with the St. Edward’s community.
Rivera saw these events as more than a celebration of cultures, but as ways to make belonging visible.
In her junior year, Rivera was nominated for the McNair Scholars Program, which prepares first-generation and lower-income students for doctoral study through immersive research experiences. She participated in two summer research programs, including one at UCLA, and her work centered on memory and architecture in El Salvador.
One Road at a Time
After graduation, Rivera, like many recent graduates, searched for her next step. She received an email from Study Abroad Coordinator Rosa Virginia Mendez about an opportunity to apply for the Rotary Global Grant Scholarship. As she determined if study abroad was possible, she received overwhelming support from staff like Director of Fellowships Dina Guidubaldi and from professors like Sharyl Cross, Mity Myhr, Joseph Kotinsky and William Nicols. The Rotary Global Grant Scholarship provides funding for graduate-level studies abroad. Rivera told herself that if she didn’t get the scholarship, then she wouldn’t attend graduate school.
She earned the largest Rotary International Global Grant Scholarship available, worth $45,000.
Rivera is especially grateful for Cross’s guidance, considering she supported Rania Lewis, St. Edward’s first Rotary Global Grant Scholar. Cross understood the significance of the opportunity and helped Rivera see herself as a strong candidate. Rivera’s selection now makes her the second Rotary Global Grant Scholar from St. Edward’s University.
As a Rotary Club of Austin Global Grant Scholar, Rivera has been volunteering across the city, including with Camp Enterprise, an entrepreneurship and leadership program for high school juniors.
Now, Rivera will embark on her latest journey representing the Rotary Club of Austin as she earns her Master of Arts in Global Security and Strategy at the Brussels School of Governance. Cross played a large role in helping Rivera choose the best path for her and her goals. Instead of a typical Master of Arts program, which often takes two to three years to complete, the MA in Global Security and Strategy is over 15 months long, with an internship and the possibility of launching her career immediately after graduation. Through this program, Rivera will deepen the questions that have followed her from El Salvador to Austin: how communities become safer, how institutions earn trust, and how diplomacy can support development that genuinely serves people.
The goal, Rivera says plainly, is to build dignity.
“I want to help rural communities continue to develop, because that's how I grew up. I saw the development of roads with my own eyes and how that improved lives. I saw the development of getting more potable water. I saw the development of getting electricity instead of living with candles,” Rivera shared. “And that's what I mean by building dignity. We need to expand the standard of living. If the city's developing, if the country's developing, so should everything else. I would love to see myself doing the kind of work I admired when I was a young kid.”
Rivera heads to Brussels ready to learn how to change the systems that shape the world she grew up in and the ones she hopes to help build. As she packs her bags and prepares to learn in one of the world’s largest diplomatic communities, Rivera carries both El Salvador and Austin closely to her heart and is ready to commit to shaping partnerships rooted in dignity, peace and a shared responsibility.
