Johannah Nikula, mathematics education expert and author, leads a body of research that advances knowledge of how to make engaging, rigorous mathematics accessible to all learners. A senior manager and principal investigator, she partners with teachers, administrators, and state departments of education to develop resources and engage in quantitative and qualitative research. She has expertise in improving instruction for multilingual learners, professional development, middle grades mathematics, fostering geometric thinking and algebraic thinking, and lesson study.

Johannah leads National Science Foundation (NSF) and Institute of Education Sciences (IES) studies that develop and test professional development strategies and produce new resources for teachers. Recently she led Analyzing Diagrams, an IES-funded project that developed and examined fraction division lessons focused on diagramming with built-in supports for multilingual learners. And, she is contributing to an NSF-funded project that developed an AI model that provides immediate feedback on students’ mathematical proofs.

For the REL Northeast & Islands at EDC, Johannah leads a researcher-practitioner partnership that is building capacity to use research-based instructional strategies to improve middle-grade multilingual learners’ mathematics achievement. As a member of EDC’s Data Paths team, she is advancing work to promote students’ data literacy and readiness for data careers. Johannah also serves as an expert facilitator for Visual Access to Mathematics, professional learning that equips educators to use visual representations and language-rich teaching in their existing mathematics curriculum to deepen student understanding.

Johannah holds an EdM from Harvard University Graduate School of Education with a Technology in Education focus and a BA in Psychology with a Mathematics minor from Middlebury College.