Nicole D. Vick has spent the last fifteen years providing tools and strategies to stakeholders, community-based organizations, students, and residents to improve health and prevent disease in some of Los Angeles County’s most underserved communities.  With 12 years of teaching experience, she is currently an adjunct professor in the Urban and Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College and has taught at Cal State LA, Ashford University, and the University of Phoenix. 

Ms. Vick currently serves on three boards.  She was most recently appointed to the boards of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles and Public Health Advocates.  For the past 5 years she has served as Board Secretary at Esperanza Community Housing, an organization that works to achieve community development in the Figueroa Corridor neighborhood of South Los Angeles.  For two years she chaired the City of Los Angeles’ newest Commission, appointed by District 8 Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson.  Ms. Vick earned both her B.S. in Public Policy and Management and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of Southern California. 

In her first book “Pushing Through: Finding the Light in Every Lesson”, she shares both the heartbreaking pain and the extraordinary triumphs that led her to advocacy and social justice work.  Her story takes place against the background of the long neglected and overlooked community of South Central Los Angeles, where she grapples with the grotesque imbalance of power and privilege as it unfolds in every aspect of her life and those around her.  She traversed seamlessly between the past and the present, and poverty and privilege.  As time passed, the duality in her world grew larger and much more complex, manifesting very deep and painful emotional experiences.  She learned to make sense of the two worlds she existed in and used that skill to connect, build, and create community, comradery, and a sense of purpose.