Fernando Tormos-Aponte Pursues Justice Through Data
For Fernando Tormos-Aponte, an assistant professor in the Dietrich School’s Department of Sociology, the pursuit of justice goes beyond the theoretical; he seeks to effect real change in the lives of vulnerable people.
“I am broadly interested in the pursuit of justice, and I'm interested in not only researching that but also actually engaging in efforts to pursue that,” Tormos-Aponte explains. “I also involve myself in advocacy, in community engagement, in educational efforts, in media work – essentially, a diversity of pathways that could allow us to enhance our efforts to achieve justice.”
Growing up, Tormos-Aponte was deeply influenced by political turmoil. “I was politicized early in my life because I'm from Puerto Rico, where politics are unavoidable,” he offers, remembering vividly massive demonstrations against the United States Navy, which was bombing a nearby island when he was in high school. These events compelled him to ponder the mechanisms of social change and justice.
“What will it take for a navy to stop bombing a beautiful place? Is it activism? Is it international solidarity? Is it politicians showing up? What kind of tactic makes the most sense? These are the types of questions that I kept asking myself,” he remembers.
At the University of Puerto Rico, Tormos-Aponte gained deeper interest and insight into politics. As a student, he actively participated in a prolonged university occupation.
“We occupied and disrupted the university for 62 days — something that would seem unfathomable in the current context, where within hours or days of students setting up some tents, they get completely removed through riot police. In that setting, having occupied a university for three months, I constantly asked myself, what will it take for us to win? And I think I was so interested in that question that I decided to pursue a PhD to be able to address that,” he says.
Tormos-Aponte’s research and advocacy efforts are characterized by a dual focus: understanding the roots of injustice and actively seeking solutions. This approach became particularly evident during his response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which exposed critical vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, particularly its power grid. Tormos-Aponte recognized the essential role of energy as a life-sustaining necessity.
Offers Tormos-Aponte, “Energy powers respiratory machines, dialysis, and other life-sustaining therapies and equipment. I started realizing that part of the reason that we had witnessed such a significant death toll after Hurricane Maria was associated with that outage and its duration.”
This realization drove him to investigate the inefficiencies and inequalities in power restoration efforts. However, accessing the necessary data proved to be a significant challenge. With many utilities privatized and no public directory, transparency was limited.
“It took calling the local utility every day for more than 100 days. Literally, I would wake up every day and start calling,” Tormos-Aponte recalls.
Eventually, he acquired the data in JPEG format. After working with data scientists to turn the data into useable information, Tormos-Aponte was able to perform the analysis and confirm that ruling party-supportive neighborhoods waited less time for crews to be sent to their areas to restore power while socially vulnerable communities waited longer for service.
“This wasn’t just that the crews were being sent to more privileged areas. The utility industry more generally had, by design, these norms around power restoration that were always going to disadvantage the marginalized,” Tormos-Aponte says.
Undeterred by the many roadblocks he encountered, Tormos-Aponte, in partnership with industry scientists, NASA, and local engineers in Puerto Rico, has since turned to using satellite imagery to measure power outages and bypass the data barriers posed by utility companies. Research related to this work has recently been awarded a Pitt Momentum Award.
Explains Tormos-Aponte, “We are able to use images that are taken from satellites at night of lights, like street lights and other nighttime lights. Those lights give us an indication of whether there's electricity in a given location or not.”
Tormos-Aponte hopes to use the data collected through the Momentum Award funding to scale this work up to the entire archipelago of Puerto Rico.
“It will be public, and it will also involve going into communities that we call ‘last mile outage’ communities to develop energy resilience plans, and to create more awareness about the importance of a transition to renewable energy and to decentralizing the energy grid to create more energy resilience,” offers Tormos-Aponte.
While such innovative approaches expand data collection, Tormos-Aponte emphasized the continued need for transparency and access to utility data.
Says Tormos-Aponte, “There's nothing that can replace the accuracy of utility data when it comes to knowing where there is and there isn't power. And there's value in integrating utility and satellite data. So we're going to continue to pursue that data. A lot of my work right now is precisely to try to address these data barriers. Once we gain access to the data to identify inequalities, we can design approaches to the provision and distribution of energy that are more equitable, and that makes sure that we reduce loss of life.”
Tormos-Aponte’s relentless efforts are motivated by his belief in the power of collective action and community resilience.
“I find a lot of hope in the energy that different communities and groups have right now. We're currently witnessing large-scale waves of activism. People who haven't lost hope in the pursuit of social change, who believe that putting themselves at risk is worth it because change is possible. I find that to be incredibly inspiring. And I happen to be in an extremely privileged position to contribute to those broader efforts,” he reflects.
At Pitt and the Dietrich School, Tormos-Aponte has found a supportive environment that values making a difference in the world. “I am surrounded by colleagues who share an interest in activism as a mechanism for social change. It's a dream to be in a place where some of the world’s top thinkers on these topics are your colleagues.”