Immediately following her undergraduate studies, Rivera earned a Master of Social Welfare degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993.

[5] Rivera competed for and was awarded a Presidential Management Internship in 1993 and used it to rotate through the Region IX offices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

She then took a job in the Head Start Branch of the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families in San Francisco, California.

Rivera was a member of the American Association of Universities' (AAU) Task Force on Strategies for Reducing Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination.

Peggy Flanagan named Rivera to the Executive Council for the Young Women's Initiative of Minnesota (YWI) in January 2021.

[13] In November 2020, Rivera offered to help cover the costs of bail if any Macalester College student was arrested during protests related to the 2020 presidential general election.