Acosta Institute

Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, 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, Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Toward Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces was published in May 2021. Her first full-length collection of poetry Love from the Vortex & Other Poems was published in March, 2020, and her sophomore book of poetry, The Peace Chronicles was released in July 2021.You can find Dr. Yolanda's website here and learn more about her recent work here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Justis Lopez (also known as DJ Faro) is the founder and ChiefEnthusiasm Officer (CEO) of Just Experience LLC, an organization that strivesto educate, entertain, and empower communities across the world. As acommunity organizer he focuses on ways to create spaces of radical joy,justice, & healing through Hip-Hop and the arts. He is currently pursuing hisdoctoral degree at Harvard in Educational Leadership, and recentlycompleted his master's degree in Education Entrepreneurship at theUniversity of Pennsylvania where he focused on creating Joy Labs withProject Happyvism. Before this role he served as the director of alumni affairsat the Council For Opportunity in Education in Washington D.C assisting withcommunity outreach for the national federal TRIO programs. He began hiscareer as a high school social studies teacher in his hometown of Manchester,CT and has served as a middle school and high school teacher in the Bronx,NY. When Justis isn't teaching he can be found DJing or dancing down thestreet. He enjoys long hikes, funfetti cupcakes, and long walks on the beach.You learn more about Justis here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Maria Tan is an educator and consultant who works with organizations, schools and individuals who are committed to serving communities through healing-centered work and education. She is a former Bronx high school science teacher where she helped lead a school-wide shift towards equitable practices including introducing restorative circles as an adult and student practice, facilitating racial affinity groups amongst staff, and teaching trauma-informed mindfulness daily to hundreds of students and adults. Maria's direct experience of healing from teacher burnout through self-excavation inspired her to launch the Thriving Teacher Project in 2020 which created healing and restorative spaces for educators during the height of the pandemic. Through this work, she focused on mindfulness, social-emotional learning, and collective healing as tools to empower educators to show up authentically for themselves and their students. Maria is the founder and director of the House of Thriving where she works with healing-centered thought leaders and organizations to help nurture their vision and bring their ideas to life. Her experience includes designing and facilitating courses and summits, producing and hosting podcasts, creative and strategic visioning, and curriculum and program research, analysis and evaluation. As a passion project, she collaborates with her two older brothers to create workshops and guided meditations focused on intergenerational healing.You can learn more about Maria's work here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Cory Greene is a formerly incarcerated co-founder and Healing Justice Organizer with How Our Lives link Altogether! (H.O.L.L.A!). He is invested in developing, leading and implementing an intergenerational, youth-led, citywide and nationwide Healing Justice Movement. Cory (39 years old) was born and raised by a single mother in East Elmhurst Queens, NY, during a time when many mothers and urban communities were impacted by the crack epidemic. His ancestors and elders hail from the struggles of delta Mississippi, and the historical reality of being Black in “America.” Cory's experiences as a youth growing up in urban ghettos have contributed to his understanding of systemic inequalities. As a result, Cory has committed himself to a wide range of educational projects, healing, and grassroots movement building that seek to change existing conditions for youth of color and our communities. Cory earned his Associate degree in Liberal Arts Deaf Studies from LaGuardia Community College and his Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Psychology from New York University. He earned his doctoral degree from the Critical Social Personality Psychology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) where his research efforts analyze the praxis of grassroots pedagogy and healing-centered youth organizing within a process of radical healing. Cory serves as a research associate and leader on numerous participatory action research (PAR) projects. Cory is an organizer with the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Family Movement (FICPFM), a national movement led by formerly incarcerated leaders to change the public policy landscape of criminal justice (punishment). He is also a national organizer with the Education Liberation Project, engaging in a national project to uplift Prison Abolition through an educational toolkit. He is a 2013 National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, 2013 Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellow, 2016 Echoing Green Fellow and 2017 Camelback fellow. Cory's organizing work, humanity and analysis has been featured in critical documentaries such as Ava Duvernay's 13th, From Prison to NYU, and most recently, H.O.L.L.A!'s Healing Justice Movement Documentary “We Came to Heal.” Cory has been married since he was 21 years old, a total of 18 years. He attributes knowing how to love and understanding of the importance of interpersonal journeying to his wife. Cory is a father who attributes his work, motivation and success to his son's existence.You can find out more about H.O.L.L.A here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Dolores Acosta M.A, is a sister, daughter, friend, aunt, wife and a wellness activist. She was born and raised in NYC and both her parents are from the Dominican Republic. She is currently the People Experience Manager at Kinly, Consultant at Acosta Consulting and the co-founder of NYC Healing Collective. For 10 years she has worked in social services and human resources for various organizations. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Masters Degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology and has always had a passion to serve others. She also works to serve our communities by providing spaces for people to open up, release and heal. As she continues her journey, she is learning, growing and evolving every single day and looking forward to helping others in their journey.You can learn more about Dolores here and find out more about the NYC Healing Collective here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Dr. Ian P. Levy is an assistant professor and the director of School Counseling Programs at Manhattan College. He is a New York City native and former high school counselor. His research explores preparing school counselors to use hip-hop based interventions to support youth development. Most notably, Dr. Levy piloted the development, implementation and evaluation of a hip-hop based counseling framework which has been featured in The New York Times, CNN and published in a variety of reputable academic journals. He is also the author of the research monograph Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy in School Counseling: Developing Culturally Responsive Approaches published by Routledge.You can find Dr. Levy's website here and learn more about his recent work here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Luis Alejandro Tapia, a son of Dominican immigrants, serves as a social impact and equity consultant, a racial and restorative justice coach and trainer, circle keeper, social justice educator, and facilitator at the intersection of spirituality, justice, healing and liberation. Luis Alejandro is committed to supporting the power of communities of color to create change and to transform leadership and learning into spaces of justice, equity and freedom.You can learn more about Luis's work here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Angela Kariotis is an “artist as public servant." She is a community-engaged culture worker and educator building creative experiences serving the needs of cities, institutions, and students of all ages for public good. Kariotis integrates restorative practices with the pedagogy of play for a transformative learning experience. Angela is winner of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in playwriting, a National Performance Network Creation Fund Award for her solo performance work, and a Tennessee Williams Theater Fellowship. As a performance artist, she's been presented by venues such as UCLA, University of Texas at Austin, People's Light, Legion Arts in Iowa, and Contact Theater in Manchester, UK. Kariotis is Curriculum Director and Facilitator of Walking the Beat, a national arts education program interrogating the history of police, the way we police each other, and ideating alternative cultures of care. The project centers violence as a public health crisis, not a criminal justice issue and is being supported by a grant from the NJ Attorney General's Office as a Community Based Violence Intervention Program. They are creating virtual reality modules, theater and performance, and a community-based oral history project. Concurrently, she is proud to work at Brookdale Community College as their first Director of Diversity & Inclusion working to integrate a healing-centered education framework in higher ed. You can find Angela's website here and watch the trailer for Walking the Beat 2022: protect your heART here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Dr. Jen Gowers has been an educator and leader in New York City public and charter schools for more than 17 years. She believes the world will thrive when our youth thrive. Jen currently serves as the chief of schools management, instruction and professional development for the Brilla network, where she serves and supports six schools in the Bronx. She is also one of the co-founders of an incredible nonprofit organization called Co-Plan It. She is passionate about transforming systems, developing individual capacity and potential, and making a better and brighter society.You can find out more about Dr. Gowers here and her work at Co-Plan It here.We want to thank Paper Monday for the interviews and portraits, Jo Barratt and Dike Godstime for the audio engineering and Maria Tan from House of Thriving for co-producing this podcast season.

Rashid Hughes is co-founder of the Heart Refuge Mindfulness Community and creator of R.E.S.T. - A Practice for the Tired & Weary. This contemplative practice supports us to settle into a sense of ease and invites us to release our efforting and striving, leaving a space for openness and awareness.

Solana Booth, doula, traditional medicine keeper, indigenous wisdom keeper and historical trauma expert guides us through a practice of connecting with our guides and our expansive sense of self.

In this episode we are joined by Quin Gonell, a doctoral candidate of educational leadership and policy studies and an educational consultant with a focus on restorative justice. He shares how his healing journey and the power of vulnerability influences the transformative work he does at the intersection of social justice education and healing-centered education. 

In this episode, we are joined by Vlada Bortnik, the CEO and co-founder of Marco Polo. She shares how maintaining relationships, building belonging and happiness were at the center of creating the Marco Polo app. Vlada's ethos of putting emotional wellbeing first emphasizes how important it is to use technology that is good for you. 

Arlène Elizabeth Casimir, Brooklyn-based educator and owner of her own of educational consultancy, shares how she designs and facilitates culturally sustaining, healing-centered,  and spiritually grounded personal and professional development. Operating from the values of freedom, community and love and guided by intuition, she shares her passion for helping people awaken their gifts in order to serve others.

In this episode we're joined by Maria Tan, the founder and director of House of Thriving and Thriving Teacher Project. We learn about her journey in education and her pivot to entrepreneurship, born from her desire to support educators' wellbeing and her discovery of decolonizing her belief systems. She shares her Thriving Educator Model and how we can move towards collective healing by starting with the self.

Arawana Hayashi of the Social Presencing Institute guides listeners through an embodiment practice that allows us to cultivate gratitude for simply being in the body and belonging on the planet in this now moment.

In this episode we are joined by Andre ChenFeng, researcher and teacher educator committed to amplifying the voices of teacher educators of color. He shares his doctoral work which looks at how teachers of color embrace and embody liberatory pedagogy and healing-centered practices. In this conversation, Andre invites us to reflect on our own healing and how it informs our work as practitioners.

In this episode, we are joined by the founder and executive director of Mobius, Aden Van Noppen. We learn about her mission to create a more responsible, compassionate tech sector by supporting technologists in the inner and outer work of transformation. By seeing technologists as caretakers and considering the grief and hope that accompanies building new technologies, Mobius ushers in an orientation towards care in tech.

In this episode, we sit with Dr. Ian Levy, Director of School Counseling Programs at Manhattan College. He shares with us the restorative and healing potential of lyric writing and his journey of embodying that process himself. In his work, he collaborates with youth to create the container for hip hop to be what it is - healing.

Director of the Teacher Education Program at Harvard University, Christina Villarreal, shares the legacy of ethnic studies - the joy, resilience, trauma, genius - as healing-centered engagement in action. Her annual symposium of ethnic studies reimagines final projects as an exercise in solidarity and vulnerability that produce powerful artifacts of healing for communities. She amplifies the cultural genius of ethnic studies as a vehicle to drive our schools and society forward.

Dr. Angel Acosta guides us through a contemplative practice that supports us in slowing down and tuning into the power of awareness.

Educator, writer and performance artist Angela Kariotis shares her framework, Practicing for the Future, inviting us to envision ourselves as artists that ideate the sustainable future. Her love for art as a process and her energy for responsibility creates a brave space for radical imagination and critical hope.

Drisana (Dru) McDaniel, mother-worker-activist and co-founder of the Transformative Teaching Collective, speaks to the power of sitting with paradox and how reorienting ourselves to the present moment can support us with integration and transmutation - what she calls becoming the everyday alchemist. Through sharing her lived experiences and her perspective on ‘turning towards' versus ‘turning away,' she provides a transformative and courageous foundation for engaging with the world.

In this episode, we explore Dr. Kia Darling-Hammond's Bridge to Thriving Framework© as a pathway to healing and restoration. With a focus on vibrancy and joy, Kia shares the power of balancing surviving and thriving and how thriving is truly a return to the self.

Educator, DJ and author, Justis Lopez, illuminates the DJ as healer and shares how his work strives to create spaces of healing and thriving through music. This conversation invites getting lost in music and sound to discover spaces of dreaming and possibility.