Haas Center taps alumna for key role
Nicole Taylor
The Haas Center for Public Service has hired alumna Nicole Taylor as the center's new managing director. Taylor's previous professional experience combines teaching and leadership roles in several nonprofit education organizations in the Bay Area. Her first day at Stanford is Monday, Jan. 30.
The main responsibilities of the managing director will be to oversee the center's day-to-day operations, its $3 million annual budget and its staff, which includes about 30 university employees and another 30 to 40 student workers. The managing director works with the center's faculty director, whose primary role is policymaking, fundraising and teaching.
Taylor, who earned a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford in 1990 and a master's degree here in education a year later, brings to the Haas Center 13 years' management experience—including eight at the director level. Most recently, she served as chief executive officer of College Track, a nonprofit that assists underserved high school students in the Bay Area to graduate and gain admission to a four-year college.
Along with her master's degree, Taylor earned her California teaching credential in science and worked for a few years as a schoolteacher in Oakland and Marin. From 1994 to 2003, she held several positions with the East Bay Community Foundation. During that time, the city of Oakland appointed her to direct a program that annually distributed more than $7 million of tax revenue to organizations serving Oakland's children and youth.
