Nicole D. Vick

Nicole D. Vick is a public health advocate, educator, civic leader, author, and community connector. She has spent the last 18 years providing tools and strategies to diverse stakeholders to improve health and prevent disease in Los Angeles County. She has successfully merged her lived experience and public health expertise into a 14-year teaching career, currently teaching in the Urban Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. Ms. Vick is also a strong community advocate. She chaired the LA City Health Commission, serves as an community/alumni advisor for USC and CSULA, and also finds time to foster economic development by hosting pop up shops supporting Black women business owners in her own backyard.

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.