Garrison Institute Fellowship Director and Fellows to Present at 4th International Conference on Mindfulness
This July, Dr. Angel Acosta, Director of the Garrison Institute Fellowship, and three Garrison Institute Fellows have been invited to participate in the 4th International Conference on Mindfulness, hosted by the Dansk Center for Mindfulness at Aarhus University. This international conference will showcase the latest research in the field of mindfulness-based applications, and feature leading experts on mindfulness and compassion, including Dr. Acosta and Garrison Institute Fellows Dr. Sará King, Selma A. Quist-Møller, and Justin Michael Williams.
Drawing on their unique areas of expertise, our Fellows will each lead workshops during this timely conference on diversity and equality. Dr. Acosta will join the conference as a keynote speaker. Held from July 5 – 9, this virtual conference will include talks, workshops, and symposia on the many areas of society where mindfulness and compassion are making a difference.
We look forward to this global gathering, which also features other friends and teachers from the Garrison Institute community. Keynote speakers Frank Ostaseski and Susan Bauer-Wu will be co-leading a virtual retreat on grief and mindfulness for our Virtual Sanctuary; for more information on this July 10th program and to register, please refer here. Last summer, keynote speaker Rhonda Magee joined Dr. Acosta in a virtual Garrison Institute Forum to discuss radical healing in our times, and their recorded dialogue remains ever-relevant and timely.
Launched in 2020, the Garrison Institute Fellowship provides an opportunity for emerging leaders and visionary thinkers to deepen their understanding of awareness-based contemplative wisdom, the science of interconnection, generative action, and collective healing. With Dr. Acosta’s leadership, the Fellows are creating an inspiring global network that emanates out from the Garrison Institute.
For more information on the 4th International Conference on Mindfulness, please refer here.
For the last decade, Dr. Angel Acosta has worked to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice, and mindfulness. He holds 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.
Dr. Sará Yafah King a UCLA-trained neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, education philosopher, critical theorist, social-entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. She is an internationally recognized thought-leader and co-creator of the scientific disciplinary field which merges our understanding of the relationship between mindfulness and social justice – having pioneered the first dissertation to explore the relationship between mindfulness, yoga, and embodied education as a liberatory, anti-oppression practice. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Neurology at OHSU (Oregon Health Science University) specializing in the study of the relationship between contemplative practices, complementary alternative medicine, community health and healing justice. Dr. King is also the executive director of “Peace in Schools” a transformative mindfulness non-profit, a dharma teacher with Presence Collective, and a member of Google’s Vitality Labs think tank. She is also the founder of a scientific consultancy, MindHeart Consulting, through which she offers up “The Science of Social Justice” framework for research and facilitation of which she is the inventor/creator. She has been able to promote trauma-informed cultural transformation using the Science of Social Justice from within Fortune 500 companies, global philanthropic agencies, and most recently, through her collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Dr. King has also been an avid student-practitioner of vinyasa yoga, as well as a student of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism for 15+ years, having completed over 700 hours of training and certification, most notably through Spirit Rock in Marin, CA.
Selma Quist Møller has studied her BSc and graduate education in psychology from UC Berkeley, UCLA, Copenhagen University, and Lund University. She specializes in research within positive health psychology, post-traumatic growth, compassion, and mindfulness, and works through the interdisciplinary approach of Interpersonal Neurobiology. She is passionate about making science accessible for everyone, why she focuses on bridging science and mindfulness practices to generate action that cultivates individual, collective, and planetary well-being, health, and justice. She has done so in various ways, including at a project teaching leaders at Google in a mindfulness-based leadership program for sustainability development, as a writer for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and as a current consultant for the Danish Parliament.
Justin Michael Williams is an author, transformational speaker, and top-20 recording artist who has become a pioneering voice for diversity and inclusion in wellness. From growing up with gunshot holes outside of his bedroom window, to sharing the stage with Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra, Justin knows well the pain of adversity and the power of healing to overcome. He has since been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Grammy.com, Billboard.com, The Root, The Advocate, Yoga Journal, and SXSW®. With his groundbreaking book Stay Woke, and over a decade of teaching experience, Justin’s message of hope and empowerment has spread to more than 40 countries around the globe, particularly through his national “Stay Woke, Give Back” tour bringing mindfulness to youth in underserved communities. Justin is dedicated to using his voice to serve; to being a beacon of hope for those who are lost, and to making sure all people, of all backgrounds, have access to the information they need to change their lives.