Host and Presenters

Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is an award-winning Associate Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on racial literacy in teacher education, Black girl literacies, and Black and Latinx male high school students. A sought-after speaker on issues of race, culturally responsive pedagogy, and diversity, Sealey-Ruiz works with K-12 and higher education school communities to increase their racial literacy knowledge and move toward more equitable school experiences for their Black and Latinx students. Sealey-Ruiz appeared in Spike Lee’s “2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright”, a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement and the campus protests at Mizzou. Her co-authored book [with Dr. Detra Price-Dennis] Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Toward Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces is now available.

Maria Tan is the founder and director of House of Thriving whose mission is to empower a sense of thriving in leaders across education, organizations and the arts so they can show up authentically and powerfully for those they serve. She designs and facilitates workshops, experiences, and community building by focusing on mindfulness, social emotional learning, and collective healing as cornerstones of thriving. Through a restorative and contemplative approach, Maria works in service to equip others with the tools and access to cultivate wellbeing and reconnect to their inner sense of wholeness.

Drisana McDaniel is a mother-worker-activist, and race equity and justice facilitator. tHer teaching addresses social injustice, racialized dimensions of trauma, resilience and capacity, and connecting across differences to experience healing and integrity. Through her practice The Alchemy of Now, Drisana attends to the nitty-gritty of our individual and collective experiences from an embodied, historical, social, and psychospiritual perspective. She envisions transformational justice as the fruit of contemplation and action. As a coworker-cofounder of the Transformative Teaching Collective, she supports organizations and groups by designing and facilitating workshops and gatherings that focus on conflict-resolution, social justice education, empathy, the practice of non-violence, healing and collaboration. She has a passion for curating events to facilitate radical interconnectedness, and is most hopeful about what can happen when we explore our connections to each other and the earth.

For the last decade, Angel Acosta has worked to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice and mindfulness. He recently received his doctorate in the Curriculum and Teaching Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. Angel has supported educational leaders and their students by facilitating leadership trainings, creating pathways to higher education, and designing dynamic learning experiences. His dissertation explores healing-centered education as a promising framework for educational leadership development.

After participating in the Mind and Life Institute’s Academy for Contemplative Leadership, he began consulting and developing learning experiences that weave leadership development, conversations about inequality and healing to support educational leaders through contemplative and restorative practices. As a former Trustee for the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, he participated as a speaker and discussant at the Asia Pacific Forum on Holistic Education in Kyoto, Japan. Angel continues to consult for organizations like the NYC Department of Education, UNICEF, Columbia University and others.

Arlène Elizabeth Casimir is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, herbalist, healer, and writer. Her experience teaching middle school and elementary school in New York City and New Orleans awakened her purpose of drawing on culturally-sustaining and trauma-responsive teaching practices to nurture the inner genius and inner teacher in others. She founded, designed, and implemented a healing-centered curriculum for her students post-Hurricane Katrina. As a first generation Haitian American, Arlène recognizes the power of community, equity, literacy, and spiritual resilience to help others live with personal integrity, transcend their circumstances, and author their own lives. She enjoys working with teachers, families, schools, and community organizations to do the inner work for socially just outer change. She is currently studying Clinical Psychology and Education with a concentration in Spirituality Mind Body at Teachers College, Columbia University; and leading her educational consultancy, The Awakened Collaborative, LLC where she works as a staff developer and partner to various institutions that are aligned to her mission, vision, and values as an educator.

Dr. Kia is an educator, researcher, and thought partner focused on increasing thriving in the world - especially for those most overlooked and underserved. She focuses on human development, anti-oppression, community care, transformative justice, and healing justice in her work. Her goal is to support people and organizations as they face their fears, cultivate abundance, and develop a principled, perseverant approach to getting free. Dr. Kia speaks widely, has published in academic and popular press, and mentors an ever-growing community of students and professionals nationwide.

Price & Registration

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