Students don't fail systems. Systems fail students — and systems can be redesigned.

Dr. Kimberly M. Nolan is the founder of RISE (Reimagining Instruction & Support in Education), a consulting practice built on a simple premise: education research is full of answers that never reach the people standing in front of students — and closing that distance is a skill you can teach. Her career began before her first teaching job, running after-school centers in the basements of Boston housing projects as a college senior. Then a Bronx middle school science classroom, where the difficult kids kept getting moved to her roster — and kept doing better. Then a dean's office, an assistant principalship, and the role that shaped her most: principal of an alternative high school, serving the students she has always called, simply, "my kids." For the past 13 years she's been a Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, chairing more than 90 doctoral dissertations. She wrote the book on education inside South Carolina's juvenile justice system — built from interviews with young people, parents, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys — then published it open access, so cost never stands between the research and the people it's about. She serves on the board of Earn the Right, supporting young people in detention across South Carolina.

As founder of RISE — Reimagining Instruction & Support in Education, Dr. Nolan brings a practitioner's lens to every engagement. She has spent more than two decades inside classrooms, graduate programs, and juvenile justice facilities — not observing from the outside, but doing the work alongside educators and students.

Her research on justice-involved youth has been published open-access through Lived Places Publishing, making it freely available to the practitioners and policymakers who need it most. She holds four degrees, including a doctorate.