Dr. Nia is a legend in her community.

Wearing multiple head wraps as a leader in Ithaca, New York (where she was born and raised), Dr. Nia serves as an Associate Professor of education and psychology at Ithaca College and Board of Directors President of Southside Community Center. She’s a mother, artist, activist, and consultant within her community and across the country.

A champion and protector of this historically Black agency, the Southside Community Center (started in 1934), works to affirm, empower, and foster the development of self-pride among the African American citizens of the greater Ithaca area in upstate NY. Dr. Nia is the creator of programs designed to empower and uplift the voices of youth, particularly young Black women and girls. A mother to 3 boys, an artist, and yogi, Dr. Nia is the embodier of radiance, empowerment, and permission. 

Dr. Nia’s work is rooted in the Black oral tradition––the movement, story-sharing, poetics, self-expression, and soulfulness––to create spaces that allow participants to get in touch with their own stories, heal from childhood traumas, and experience firsthand the power of collectivism. Her spaces are inclusive and exclusive, expansive, and concise.  They are spaces that contain the right kind of alchemy of intensity and grace that challenges and invites people to become even more anti-racist, even more pro-Black, even more rooted in empathy and compassion, even freer in self-expression, and even more connected to others, especially across realities.