Angel Acosta

Angel Acosta is a doctoral candidate in the Curriculum and Teaching Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. For the last decade, he has worked to bridge the fields of leadership, college access, social justice and mindfulness. As a program director for the national nonprofit, CFES Brilliant Pathways, Angel has supported educational leaders and their students by facilitating leadership trainings and creating pathways to higher education.

With a passion for helping young people to think globally and act locally, he directed and taught at a global leadership study abroad program in Rome through the award-winning Leadership exCHANGE. This opportunity to bring students from all over the world to study leadership, cross-cultural communication and social entrepreneurship inspired Angel to deepen his commitment to social justice in the U.S.A. He began his doctorate program exploring the interconnections between social justice education and mindfulness-based education.

For the last decade, Angel Acosta has worked to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice, and mindfulness. He is pursuing a doctorate degree in curriculum and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Acosta has supported more than educational leaders and their students by facilitating leadership trainings, creating pathways to higher education, and designing dynamic learning experiences. His dissertation explored healing-centered education as a promising framework for educational leadership development.

After participating in the Mind and Life Institute’s Academy for Contemplative Leadership, Acosta began consulting and developing learning experiences that weave leadership development with 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. He continues to consult for organizations like the NYC Department of Education, UNICEF, Columbia University and others. Over the last couple of years, he has designed the Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality Experience--a contemplative journey to understand structural inequality. He's a proud member of the 400 Years of Inequality Project, based at the New School.