Nikki’s work focuses on leading systems change that cultivates belonging and shared purpose. As Director of School Redesign at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education’s Center for Love and Justice, she partners with educators and leaders to align practice with purpose. She supports schools in cultivating shared leadership and transformative learning that is both rigorous and liberating.
Her path as an educator began in East Los Angeles and Boston, where she taught math and science and worked alongside students, families, and colleagues in underserved communities to co-create learning ecosystems that reflect their strengths, stories, and aspirations. At High Tech High, she served as the Director of four schools, including founding a middle school and a K–12 village of schools from the ground up.
Rooted on the unceded lands of the Kumeyaay people, Nikki strives to live and lead in reciprocal relationship with the planet, recognizing herself as part of the living ecosystems she tends. She is a proud member of a local community garden, where the cultivation of connection and the soil is soul work. Whether in the garden, the water or the mountains, she finds renewal in the shared rhythms of life that connect us all. She envisions a world where all people learn in communities that are alive with love and justice.