T. Philip Nichols is an associate professor of English Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the Moody School of Education at Baylor University, where he studies the relationship between literacy, technology, and public education. His work is anchored by two questions: (1) how do science and technology condition the ways we learn, teach, and talk about literacy? And (2) what are the implications of this conditioning for equitable public education?

His approach to these questions is shaped by his unique combination of training and professional experience. He holds a Ph.D. in Literacy, Culture, and International Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned an M.A. in History and Sociology of Science, and he has spent nearly twenty years teaching in, and working in partnership with, K-12 schools. Accordingly, his research is simultaneously historical, attentive to how the past conditions the present; sociological, concerned with the relation between situated classroom activities and wider cultural currents; and practical, invested in what theoretical knowledge offers the everyday work of instruction, administration, and policy—and vice versa.

He is the author of Building the Innovation School: Infrastructures for Equity in Today's Classrooms (Teachers College Press), based on three years of ethnographic research in an experimental Philadelphia public high school, and the co-editor, with Antero Garcia, of Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, and Possibilities (Routledge). He has published dozens of academic articles in some of the field’s premier journals, including Harvard Educational Review, Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Reading Research Quarterly. In addition, he regularly writes for audiences beyond the academy in venues like The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Education Week, and provides expert commentary for media outlets like NPR and The Washington Post.

His work has been widely recognized for its contributions to the field of education. He was a recipient of a National Academy of Education / Spencer Dissertation Fellowship (2017) and Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021), and he was awarded the Early Career Achievement Award from the Literacy Research Association (2022). He has also been honored by various professional organizations, including the 2024 Media Literacy Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the 2024 Researcher Award from the National Association. for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and his co-authored article “Speculative Capture: Literacy after Platformization” received the 2025 Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Literacy Research from the Literacy Research Association.

He was the past editor of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (English), and he presently serves as chair of the Media, Culture, and Learning SIG of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He is also a founding board member of the Civics of Technology project and serves on the school board of the Kirby Hall School in Austin, TX.

You can access his CV here, and follow him on Google Scholar and Bluesky.