Dr. Nelson Varas-Díaz is a social-community psychologist and a professor in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. His current research examines the role of extremity in society through the lenses of health and illness, natural and human-made disasters, and communal cultural practices. His research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, focuses on documenting: 1) physician migration and its impact on healthcare systems in disaster-affected contexts, 2) the role of energy independence through solar panels in managing chronic diseases within marginalized communities, and 3) communal acupuncture as a collective health-sustaining strategy. This work is summarized in his numerous articles published in journals such as Social Science & Medicine and Global Public Health, his recent books On Extremity: From Music to Images, Words, and Experiences (Lexington, 2023), and The Ethics of Extremity: On Hearing, Seeing, and Feeling Each Other (Bloomsbury, 2026).

In addition to his health-related research, Dr. Varas-Díaz investigates the concept of extremity in culture, particularly in relation to music and the arts. His recent publications in this area include Seeing Metal Music in Latin America and the Caribbean (Lexington, 2024) and The Bad Bunny Enigma: Culture, Resistance, and Uncertainty (Lexington, 2025). He is also deeply committed to employing visual methods, such as photovoice and documentary filmmaking, as communal research strategies.

His documentary work, produced through his collective Black Chango Films, uses ethnographic storytelling to examine the lived experience of health, disaster, and cultural resilience in Puerto Rico and the broader Global South. His films — including The Darkness: Lessons on Solar Energy, Community, and Power (2022), Collapse (2021), The Bee (2020), Nostalgia (2025), and other award-winning works — trace how communities navigate failing infrastructures, chronic illness, migration, and collective strategies of survival. Together these films have garnered more than one hundred official selections and awards at international festivals, positioning his visual scholarship as a bridge between academic research and public cultural dialogue.