Dr. David E. Rivers

David Rivers is currently the Director of Public Information and Community Outreach (PICO) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Since 1995, he has served MUSC in many capacities, promoting partnerships between academic institutions, government agencies and elected officials, business and industry, faith-based groups and community activists. Under his leadership, the PICO initiative has conducted dozens of Community Leaders Institutes nationwide to address health disparities and produced nationally televised dialogues on health, energy and national security issues. Rivers also currently serves as Advisory Board Chairman for the ongoing National Conference on Health Disparities (NCHD).

Before arriving at the Medical University, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees and completed coursework toward a doctoral degree at Georgia State University. He is a graduate of the National Urban Fellows Program in Public Administration at Yale University and the Riley Institute Diversity Leadership Program at Furman University. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Allen University in Columbia, SC.

Rivers holds many distinctions. He was Atlanta’s first African American Commissioner of Budget and Planning and the first African American to hold a citywide elective office in Charleston, SC. He is Chairman of the James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation and President of the Jonathan Green Foundation. He is a member of the Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards for such organizations as the National Forum for Black Public Administrators; the Center for Latino Community Health in Long Beach, CA; the National Urban Fellows; the Sea Island Comprehensive Health Care Corporation on Johns Island, SC; and, the Trustee Board of Allen University. He is the father of one son, Darwin Rivers.