Dr. Nadia Lopez is an award-winning thought leader in education, who became a viral sensation after the popular blog Humans of New York featured one of scholars, naming her as the most influential person in his life. Her work of opening a school to close the prison, was evident in Mott Hall Bridges Academy, a STEAM-focused middle school in Brownsville, Brooklyn she founded in 2010 and served as the principal for ten years.

Named LinkedIn’s 2019 Top 10 Voices in Education and the recipient of the 2015 Black Girls Rock award–alongside Michelle Obama– she has been featured throughout various media outlets that include New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Glamour Magazine, the Ellen Degeneres Show, Good Morning America, and the Today Show. Dr. Lopez was also invited to the White House to meet with President Obama and selected as one of the Varkey Foundation’s Top 50 Global Teacher Prize Finalists in 2016.

She is the author of the best selling book, "The Bridge to Brilliance," which is a memoir on how she opened a school, and a co-author of "Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution." Her TED Talk on the Education Revolution has garnered more than a million views and she served as guest lecturer at the Harvard University’s Graduate School for Education teaching students on the subject matter of Transformative Justice, Education, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline.

In 2020, Dr. Lopez ended her tenure as principal to focus on her work as a mental health advocate and leadership sustainability after developing a stress-related illness that threatened her life. Shifting from her day-to-day work of leading a school building, she continues to open schools, serves as a global ambassador of education, coaches, consults, and is on a crusade to inspire 10 million educators to impact 1 billion students by 2030 through work and her social platforms.

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