Dr. Colon-Rivera grew up between San Juan and Vieques, PR. His mother, a special education teacher often took him to work with her, where he was exposed to families dealing with mental illness. This early exposure instilled in him a deep understanding of social factors, such as poverty, lack of education, poor accessibility to health care, as well as reduced social and family support contributing to mental illness. 

Following medical school in PR and psychiatric residency training at Boston University, he completed his addiction psychiatry fellowship at Yale where he focused on working with Children and Adolescents with substance use disorders. 

He is a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center where he specializes in the acute care of patients with a wide variety of mental health and substance use disorders. 

He is an attending physician at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) working on an emerging community program to increase rural access to Medical Assisted Treatments for patients with substance use disorder 

He has been committed to actively serving the American Psychiatric Association (APA) since he started his medical training.