Celia Alvarez, Ph.D.

Celia Alvarez, Ph.D. has been at the forefront of curriculum reform in higher education and trans-disciplinary academic programs of study over the last 30 years.  Her expertise has been in building bridges across cultures and disciplines, and fostering trans-disciplinary collaboration.  She served as the founding Dean of Students and Faculty for the Ananda University undergraduate program, helping to design a program of “higher education for higher consciousness” that was both expansive and innovative.  She has also taught in the university’s World Cultures and Consciousness Department including courses on Physics and Consciousness and the Yuga Cycles of Time with Byasa Steinmetz.  She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and a B.A. in Language and Communication from Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts.  Her area of research and teaching at the graduate level includes the study of language, gender, and identity across cultures, the study of oral narrative of personal experience, oral history, women’s studies, multicultural/bilingual education, higher education, and ethnic studies.  She has taught at Columbia University Teacher’s College worked in the City University of New York, Cal State, ASU, and other universities nationally and internationally.  She served on the Board of Trustees of Hampshire College 2003-07.  She is a Kriya Yoga practitioner and is actively engaged in finding the unity in diversity across spiritual traditions.  She currently serves as a member of the Ananda University Advisory Board and is guest faculty.