Nichole Pinkard, PhD

Co-Founder & Chief Systems Officer

As Co-Founder and Chief Systems Officer of STEAMe, Nichole Pinkard, PhD, leads the design of the shared digital and data infrastructure communities need to connect people to learning, skills, and employment at scale. A computer scientist, learning scientist, and nationally recognized systems thinker, Nichole has spent more than two decades working on a question that now sits at the center of workforce development: How do we ensure that a person’s interests and talents can become real skills, meaningful relationships, and pathways to economic opportunity?

Long before workforce ecosystems became a national priority, Nichole was building and studying the infrastructure that connects young people to opportunity across schools, libraries, community organizations, and digital spaces. She founded the Digital Youth Network, which became both a learning laboratory and an engine for creating new models of connected learning.

Her work then moved from designing individual learning environments to engineering entire opportunity ecosystems. She created Cities Learn, a shared digital and data platform that helps communities map their learning landscapes, connect young people to opportunities, document their learning journeys, and identify where access is breaking down.

Nichole also launched STEAMbassadors. The initiative demonstrates how communities can develop young people’s talents while simultaneously building a diverse mentor workforce and creating pathways into future employment.

Across all of this work, Nichole has remained focused on one idea: opportunity is not simply something people find. It is something communities can design, connect, and make visible. At STEAMe, she is applying that idea to workforce development—building the infrastructure that helps communities move people from interest and learning to employment, advancement, and economic mobility.

Nichole’s research and systems-building have shaped national conversations about digital learning, out-of-school-time ecosystems, youth mentorship, and the role communities play in developing talent. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the ViVo Foundation. and other public and philanthropic partners.

Nichole is the Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences and Faculty Director of the Office of Community Education Partnerships at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. She holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University, an MS in Computer Science from Northwestern University, and a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern. Before joining Northwestern, she held faculty and leadership positions at DePaul University and the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute.