Anti-Racist & Diversity Consultants
Dr. Ángel L. Vélez, Co-founder
Dr. Ángel Luis Vélez is a seasoned, award-winning racial equity and anti-racist researcher, trainer, consultant, and community advocate. He earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership with a concentration in History of Education and a graduate minor in Latina/o Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
During his undergraduate years, Dr. Vélez began to ask more profound questions about the racial history of U.S. society. Starting as a member of the student government, he became entrenched in creating equitable policies and opportunities for racialized people of color in higher education. As a young scholar, Dr. Vélez continued his journey to graduate school with the same intensity and newfound love for researching and teaching about racial equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Throughout his doctoral studies, he developed a critical understanding of anti-racism, racial equity, and inclusion in the policy space. As a first-generation Afro-Latino, Dr. Vélez quickly found a passion for teaching and researching racial equity and inclusion matters. Due to years of commitment to teaching, research, and service, he secured numerous fellowships and awards, including the Surge Institute Fellowship, the Diversifying Faculty in Illinois, and the ENLACE Leadership Institute Fellowship.
In 2019, Dr. Vélez started Velez Diversity Consulting, LLC to continue his journey to make an incredible impact in the DEIB space in corporations, higher education, and nonprofit organizations. He has consulted over a dozen organizations in anti-racist training and strategy and has been featured in USA Today and NBC News as a content matter expert on Latinx issues. He is looking forward to expanding his footprint on what he calls “Critical DEI,” which aims to reduce harm and inequality by creating anti-racist organizations and individuals. Learn more about Dr. Vélez in the link below:
Over the past 20 years, Lynette Correa-Vélez has become a leading expert in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the career coaching space. She has developed two DEIB-centered career centers in higher education institutions and coached over 20,000 career learners, including master students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and corporations such as Facebook and TikTok.
Correa-Vélez is a 3rd-year doctoral student in Diversity and Equity in Education with an emphasis IN Human Resources Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) located in Champaign, IL. She also has an M.Ed. from UIUC and a B.S. from Lesley University in her home state of MA, both in Human Resources.
Born and raised in Boston, MA, to Puerto Rican parents, Correa-Vélez has overcome many obstacles. She is the first in her family with a high school diploma, and a college degree, and the first female on both sides of her family to have created and sustained two successful career-centered social enterprises, which include "Career Coaching 4 Kidz" and "Chameleon Career Coaching."
She is the Director of Tech Launchpad, an equity-centered initiative at Kennedy-King College (JJC) based in Chicago, IL. Learn more about Correa-Vélez below: