Nikki Lewis is a collegiate associate professor for the Honors College where she instructs courses on the processes of conducting research and decision-making using data. Nikki also serves as the preceptor for the Hillcrest Honors Living Learning Community. In her previous professional roles at the university, she worked with colleagues to develop innovative active-learning courses, and presented her work at numerous educational conferences. She continues this work in course and curriculum development through her current role in the college.

Nikki earned her doctorate of philosophy degree in Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology in 2013 from Virginia Tech, and spent much of her graduate tenure developing undergraduate courses on research methods. Her experience has led her to participate in two primary avenues of research. Her primary research lies in undergraduate education and development of pedagogical best practices for student learning. She has served as co-principal investigator for NSF- and NIH-funded programs for student success in the sciences. Secondly, she collaborates with the Brown Experiential Learning group, where students from a variety of majors collaborate on data-centric research studies. The group uses computational methods to answer research questions about prevalent diseases like type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. 

Nikki grew up in Newport News, Virginia and earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Christopher Newport University. She enjoys collecting varieties of tea, baking, and a variety of arts and crafts.