Dr. Joyce McNickles, M.Ed and Ed.D (she/hers/her ) is a seasoned social justice educator and consultant with over three decades of experience in promoting cultural competency, racial equity, and inclusion across academic, corporate, and non-profit sectors. As the founder of McNickles & Associates, she specializes in coaching executive leadership, conducting staff training, and facilitating dialogues on diversity, including race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Currently serving as a Visiting Professor of Politics and Social Justice at Regis College, Dr. McNickles previously held a position as a Professor of Human Development and Human Services at Anna Maria College, where she taught courses on workplace diversity, social inequality, racial equity, multicultural education, and sociology. She has also contributed to business management textbooks on diversity and presented research on black identity development.
Dr. McNickles has made significant contributions to health equity, lecturing on Implicit Bias in Health Care and participating in the Institutional Review Board at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her involvement with the Worcester Partnership for Racial and Ethnic Health Equity and her breast cancer awareness workshops for African American women have earned her recognition as a Hometown Hero by Worcester Magazine in 2019.
Committed to community service, Dr. McNickles has received awards such as the Eleanor Hawley Award for Human Rights in 2016 and the YWCA’s Erskine Award in education in 2019. She has also been actively involved in organizations like the ACLU, the Massachusetts Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, and the YWCA of Central Massachusetts, where she co-founded the Racial Justice Task Force. Furthermore, she served on Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s Advisory Council on Racial Justice and Equity from 2016 to 2023.
Dr. McNickles holds a master’s degree in social justice from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a doctorate in adult education with a focus on social justice from National-Louis University.