Alfonso Montero
Adjunct Professor of Educational Leadership,
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Professional Overview
Dr. Alfonso Montero serves as faculty in the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership and as Program Director for the MA in Leadership at Saint Mary’s College of California. He holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Lewis University and a master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, where he focused on international political economy and development within interconnected global systems.
Dr. Montero’s scholarship examines leadership within complex, interdependent environments. His work centers on Systems Thinking Mindset (STM), posthumanist and relational perspectives, Indigenous and non-Western epistemologies, and the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in education and organizational life. His research explores how leaders cultivate discernment, reflexivity, and adaptive capacity while navigating evolving relationships among technology, culture, and human systems.
He is co-author of a published book chapter on Systems Thinking Mindset in the Age of AI and has a forthcoming chapter advancing STM as a practice grounded in spirituality for leaders and problem-solving. Together, this scholarship contributes to an integrative framework connecting systems theory, adaptive leadership, technological change, and relational ways of knowing.
Drawing from experience across public, private, and international sectors, Dr. Montero brings a scholar-practitioner orientation to his teaching and mentorship, integrating theoretical depth with practical insight across diverse contexts.
As a dissertation chair, Dr. Montero mentors doctoral students in designing rigorous, theoretically grounded, and socially responsive research. His approach emphasizes epistemological clarity, qualitative and practitioner inquiry, disciplined diagnosis, and scholarship that reflects the complexity and interdependence of contemporary leadership systems.