Writer, poet, activist and cultural worker David Acosta is the coordinator of HIV/AIDS prevention programs for the city of Philadelphia. His work in movements for social change, including ACT UP Philadelphia and Queer Action, spans 30 years in areas as diverse as Native American rights, GLBT rights and health care reform, among others. He is the recipient of many awards for his work in HIV AIDS prevention and work in social change.

In 1989 he founded GALAEI (Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative), one of the first programs of its kind in the United States, designed specifically to meet the needs of Latino sexual minorities regarding HIV transmission and prevention. He was executive director of GALAEI until June of 1999.

In 1999 David helped to organize the GMOC summit for the first Gay Men's Health Summit in Boulder, and in 2000 he was part of the six-person collective responsible for planning the 2000 National Gay Men's Health Summit. In 2004 he was once again [?] one of the organizers of the National GLBTI Conference in Boston. This year he is on the organizing committee for the Gay Men's Health Summit in Salt Lake City Utah. He is also a founding member and board member of the National GLBT Health Coalition.

David is a founding member of many additional organizations, including the National Campaign For Freedom of Expression, The Latin American Writers Collective, Desde Este Lado, Fuego Latino, The Art Emergency Coalition and Prevention Point Philadelphia. He is also a co-founder of the Philadelphia Working Fund For Artists with HIV/AIDS. He has served on many boards and arts commissions and has been a contributing editor to POZ en Español, which honored him in its 1998/1999 Winter issue as one of 49 Latinos in the nation who have made a difference in the area of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Acosta is a well known poet and writer whose works have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press, 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press, 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995) and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998).