About Nicole

I work where systems change and human change meet.

15+ years inside education, workforce, and government systems. A body that eventually forced a different kind of education. Now, both bodies of knowledge, held together.

Nicole Klues portrait
Where This Work Has Lived
U.S. Department of LaborU.S. Department of EducationD.C. Public SchoolsWalton Family FoundationDelaware Department of EducationAtrium HealthConquer MovementVita Fitness & Yoga NomaYogiTown

This work is professional. It is also personal.

For over fifteen years, I built systems inside education, workforce, and government: classrooms, then statewide platforms, then national programs serving people who never knew my name. The rooms kept changing. The lesson never did. Meet people exactly where they are, not where a policy or a platform assumes they should be. Nothing is ever one size fits all. Technology was never the hard part. Believing you can do the next thing, that was.

Teaching is the thread underneath all of it. I've taught state agencies how to adopt new systems, taught organizations how to think about AI without losing their people, and taught yoga and nervous-system practices to people rebuilding their capacity from the ground up. It's also why I'm an expert facilitator and speaker, not by title but by hours logged: leading rooms, not performing at them. Different rooms, same skill: meeting someone exactly where they are.

In 2023, my body sent the invoice for every signal I'd ignored to keep proving I could handle it all. I collapsed on a hotel bathroom floor with a back injury that stopped me flat, and underneath the pain, I already knew: this wasn't happening to me. It was happening for me. Your body whispers before it screams. Mine had been whispering for years. I just hadn't learned how to listen.

What came after wasn't a detour from the systems work. It was the other half of it, the half nobody had taught me: nervous-system science, advanced yogic practice, trauma-informed care, learned the way everything that actually changes you gets learned, by living it first and understanding it after.

Today I bring both sides of that lesson together, as a human-first AI strategist, Certified Responsible AI Leader, Certified AI Solutions Architect, facilitator, speaker, writer, Master Yoga Teacher, and Trauma-Informed practitioner. Most people split this into two experts. I refuse to. Strategy without humanity fails. Regulation without systems change is not enough. Mindful Klues exists to hold both.

My career taught me how systems change. My own rebuilding taught me what happens when humans are expected to absorb change without enough capacity. Mindful Klues lives at the intersection.

Credentials & training.

Systems, AI & Organizational

Certified AI Solutions Architect

AI Leadership Institute, under Noelle Russell.

Certified Responsible AI Leader

AI Leadership Institute, under Noelle Russell.

15+ Years, Federal & District Systems

U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Education, and DC Public Schools.

Education Pioneers Fellow

National fellowship developing leaders closing the opportunity gap in education systems.

Human Capacity & Embodied Practice

Master's Certification, Yogic Science

Sattva Yoga Academy, Rishikesh, under Anandji.

500-Hour Yoga Teacher Training

Vida, Washington DC (200-hour) and Sattva Yoga Academy, Rishikesh (300-hour).

Trauma-Informed Certification

Specialized training grounding the Rebuild work in trauma-informed practice.

Teaching Yoga & Leading Retreats Since 2018

Ongoing practice alongside the systems and strategy work, not separate from it.

Academic & Other

Doctoral Coursework, Educational Technology

Graduate-level study in how technology reshapes learning and institutions.

Multiple Faculty of the Year Honors

Missouri College, recognizing teaching and online education leadership.

MA, Political Science

University of Illinois.

BA, Communications & Political Science

Northern Illinois University.

Change should not cost us our bodies, voices, values, or humanity.

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