Summer Payne

Summer Payne is a certified educator, eco-chaplain, and healing-centered coach whose work lives at the intersection of reintegration, justice, and wellness. With a foundation in herbalism and spiritual care, she combines natural remedies, contemplative practices, and deep listening to guide both individuals and institutions toward holistic transformation. As a Director of Learning and Inclusion, Summer also leads enterprise-wide strategies to cultivate equity, leadership, and cultural change within complex systems.

Her work is guided by ancestral wisdom, rigorous inquiry, and the belief that healing is inseparable from liberation. With over 20 years in K–12 education and higher ed, she now designs learning experiences that move beyond performative DEI and into realms of embodiment, storytelling, and sacred accountability. Summer holds space as a story coach and mindfulness facilitator, helping people name, feel, and liberate the stories that shape them.

Through the Acosta Institute Fellowship, Summer seeks to deepen her practice in community, while nurturing her vision of intergenerational, healing-centered learning spaces rooted in care, play, and possibility. She is especially drawn to co-creating new models of education as a site of belonging, not bureaucracy—and to writing the book that’s been calling her forward.