Doctorate, Adult Learning & Leadership
Teachers College, Columbia University. Doctoral research on transformative learning, mentorship, and AI-assisted qualitative methodology.
About
A career built across three disciplines
Attorney and mediator. Scholar of adult learning and leadership. Consultant and coach. Each chapter informs the next — and all of them serve one purpose: helping people and organizations flourish.
Adriana Trandafirescu, JD, MA, is an attorney, mediator, consultant, and doctoral candidate in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work sits at the intersection of law, organizational strategy, and the science of how adults learn, change, and lead.
She began her career in law, practicing corporate immigration law and serving as a mediator and arbitrator — work that taught her how high-stakes decisions are really made, and how often the difference between conflict and progress is the quality of attention people bring to a conversation.
That question — how attention, meaning, and growth actually work — led her to Columbia, where her research spans transformative learning, mentorship, human flourishing, and the responsible integration of AI in qualitative research. She is the inventor of a patent-pending methodology for AI-assisted thematic analysis and a frequent speaker at academic and professional conferences.
A pattern runs through it all: whatever she takes on tends to become award-winning — her legal service, the leadership and coaching programs she has designed, her curricula, and her workshops.
Born in Romania and based in New York, she works in English and Romanian, and brings a bicultural sensibility to questions of identity, integration, and belonging in organizations.
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MA, Adult Learning & Leadership
Teachers College, Columbia University. [ Insert concentration, thesis topic, or honors. ]
Juris Doctor (JD)
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B.S., Developmental & Cognitive Psychology
Stony Brook University (SUNY). [ Insert honors or notable coursework. ]
Mediator & Arbitrator
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A selection of honors, fellowships, and recognition across law, scholarship, and community leadership.
U.S. Provisional Patent — Inventor
“System and Method for Automating Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Data With Multi-Agent Triangulation” (U.S. provisional application #64/045,911).
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Professional communities, academic service, and civic engagement.
Teachers College, Columbia University
Doctoral community, Adult Learning & Leadership; course assistant and contributor to doctoral student scholarship. [ Add roles, e.g., Doctoral Student Association. ]
Romanian United Foundation
Community leadership and education initiatives supporting the Romanian diaspora. [ Add role and years. ]
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