Meet Our Leaders
Lillian Rivera, RN, MSN, PhD
Administrator
Lillian Rivera is the Administrator of the Miami-Dade County Health Department, where she is responsible for the oversight and supervision of public health programs throughout the county. She is charged with the administration of a $70 million budget and approximately 1,000 employees.
Formerly, she was appointed by Surgeon General Dr. Ana M. Viamonte Ros as Deputy State Health Officer with the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee. Her responsibilities included overseeing 67 county health departments and championing the deployment of performance excellence model within the Department of Health. Prior to serving as Deputy State Health Officer Ms. Rivera was the Administrator of the Miami-Dade County Health Department for nearly four years.
Ms. Rivera has also held the position of Executive Community Health Nursing Director, where she was responsible for public health nursing and co-administration of the daily operations of the Miami-Dade County Health Department. She held practice positions as associate head nurse, head nurse, assistant director of nursing, and director of nursing at the Public Health Trust of Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami. She also held the position of Nursing Director in Puerto Rico with the Department of Health.
Ms. Rivera earned both BSN and MSN degrees from the University of Puerto Rico and a PhD in Health Administration from Warren National University. She also received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in Behavioral Sciences from Carlos Albizu University. She is certified as a Health Care Risk Manager and is a graduate of the Executive Institute for Community Health Nurses (UNC-Chapel Hill), a fellow of the Nurse Executive Program/Robert Wood Foundation and the National Public Health Leadership Institute 2003.
She serves as President for the Florida Sterling Council, Advisory Group Member for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pipeline to Practice: Nurse Leader on Boards program and Nursing Circle Advisory Council Member for the American Academy of Nursing. Ms. Rivera is a member of the American Nurses Association, Florida Association of Public Health Nurses, Florida Nurses Association, Florida Public Health Association and an honorary member of the Alpha Omega Chapter of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society.
Ms. Rivera has received many accolades, yet one of the most humbling to her is the one that named her “Florida Outstanding Woman in Public Health for 2008” by the University of South Florida College of Public Health.
