Octavio is an historian of American culture and music with special interest in the processes of social change, cultural resistance, and the religious imagination. As an undergraduate student at Princeton University, he was blessed to work with Br. Cornel West, exploring the religious dimensions of Tupac Shakur’s music and death. He completed his Masters Degree at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, CA with Rev. Dr. Gabriella Lettini. As the ’11-’12 Hilda Mason teaching fellow he developed and taught the course Music & Art for Social Change. He was further blessed to complete his PhD work with Br. West, Daisy Machado, and Troy Messenger at Union Theological Seminary in NY, focusing on “the long sixties” as a period of profound awakening in American history. His academic studies are grounded in his time living in Guatemala, Spain and the Czech Republic.