Biography
Abril is a migration, gender, and participatory research consultant, as well as a trained art therapist and psychologist, specialising in social and cultural psychology and gender and sexuality studies. She holds a DPhil in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, where her research explored the intersections of gender, sexuality, and survival migration in Latin America, using mixed and arts-based methods.
She is currently Lead Researcher on a project examining attitudes toward migrant inclusion in Mexico, in collaboration with the social enterprise Intrare, civil society organisations, and Mexican and international academic partners. Abril is also a co-researcher on “Sanctuaries of Hope: Co-Creating Knowledge on South-South Queer Migration with Bogotá’s LGBTQ+ houses,” in partnership with York University (Canada) and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).
Her work spans civil society, intergovernmental, and academic contexts across Mexico, Colombia, the UK, and East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi), with a focus on migration, asylum, well-being, and entrepreneurship.
Select Publications
Ríos-Rivera A. (2026) Latin American migrants’ transit/ions and sexual agency reconfigurations. Frontiers in Human Dynamics 7:16897
Ríos-Rivera A. (2025) Gender-Based Violence, Migration and (Dis)Empowerment: Women and Transwomen Migrants in the Americas. PArtecipazione e COnflitto 18(1):282–300
Psychosocial well-being: An overlooked dimension in the lives of refugees and host communities in Kenya
Blog | World Bank Blogs | Antonia Delius, Abril Ríos-Rivera & Precious Zikhali | April 2025
The digitisation of US asylum application processes and externalisation in Mexico
Article | Forced Migration Review 73 | May 2024
Imprisoned, Lost and Empowered: Photo-Narratives of Refugees and Migrants in Mexico
Article | Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration vol. 11, issue 2 | January 2024
Photovoice practitioner from Mexico working with people to explore themes of Migration & Gender
Podcast | Our Creative Connection | August 2023
