About

Dr. Angel Acosta is a global thought leader, educator, and founder who has transformed his doctoral research into a thriving interdisciplinary consulting firm—The Acosta Institute. With a doctorate in Curriculum & Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Acosta has spent the past decade building a practice at the nexus of healing-centered education, contemplative leadership, business transformation, and ethical technology.

Rooted in his pioneering dissertation on healing-centered education, Dr. Acosta launched the Acosta Institute in 2020. Since then, he has grown the organization into a national and international hub for capacity building, leadership development, and cultural transformation, raising over $2 million in funding—including a multi-year grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. His work supports school districts, foundations, corporations, and civil society groups in integrating mindfulness, racial equity, and restorative practice into their learning and leadership ecosystems.

Internationally, Dr. Acosta has shared his frameworks across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, delivering keynotes and leading programs in the Czech Republic, Japan, Portugal, Ghana, and Italy. His global impact began as the director of a study-abroad leadership program in Rome, fostering cross-cultural dialogue and social entrepreneurship, and has continued through high-profile engagements such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Holistic Education in Kyoto and partnerships with global entities like UNICEF and the House of Beautiful Business.

He currently serves as Director of the Garrison Institute Fellowship Program, is a Mind & Life Institute Fellow, and sits on the Global Advisory Board of Keio University’s Center for Contemplative Studies in Tokyo. As chair of the Acosta Institute, he continues to shape the future of healing-centered leadership and civic imagination, with an expanding focus on business innovation and artificial intelligence through a healing-centered lens.

Dr. Acosta has designed and led hundreds of keynotes, workshops, and retreats for organizations including SYPartners, Google, Accenture, Salesforce Foundation, Stanford’s Life Design Lab, B Lab U.S. & Canada, the Center for Policing Equity, and the NYC Department of Education. He also curates experiential public education projects like the Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality workshop and the Wounded Healers Portrait and Podcast Series.

In recent years, Dr. Acosta has developed healing-centered adult education programs on artificial intelligence, empowering professionals across sectors to engage with emerging technologies through an ethical, mindful, and community-rooted framework. He also launched the Polyopportunity Global Initiative in partnership with the House of Beautiful Business, an international collaboration exploring how humanity can respond to the polycrisis with creativity, cooperation, and beauty.

Most recently, Dr. Acosta founded the Acosta Institute Fellowship—a visionary program preparing lifelong learners and leaders at the intersection of education, business, and technology. This fellowship embodies his commitment to cultivating integrative, purpose-driven leadership rooted in care, contemplation, and bold imagination.

A proud first-generation Dominican-American and SUNY Plattsburgh alum, Dr. Acosta brings lived experience, academic rigor, and visionary leadership to his mission: to help individuals and institutions heal, transform, and thrive in overwhelming times.