Leigh Hopkins created Viva Institute in 2010 with the goal of creating a virtual retreat center for busy people. With a twenty-year background in public policy, education reform, and program development, Leigh channeled her talents into developing content-rich courses to support all learners. She hand-picks all instructors and is personally involved in all stages of Viva's programming, from content selection to curriculum development to program delivery. 

Leigh is the Editor and Curator of Khôra, a dynamic online arts space conceived and produced in collaboration with author Lidia Yuknavitch and Corporeal Writing. Leigh is a writing workshop leader at Corporeal Writing, a columnist at The Rumpus, and her work has appeared in BOMB, Longreads, McSweeney’s, Entropy, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications.

In 2010, Leigh left a career in social policy to move to Brazil, where she founded an online institute by rigging a satellite dish to a boulder in a banana field. Before founding Viva Institute, Leigh was a leader in the design, development, and implementation of the after school literacy program model Youth Education for Tomorrow (YET), which was referenced by President Obama in the New York Times as an example of what’s possible in community-based institutions. As the Vice President for Education of a leading social policy think tank, Leigh provided support to 500 literacy programs in historically underserved communities throughout the United States. Today, Leigh lives in Philadelphia.