Nikka Landau

Nikka Landau is the senior director of marketing and communications at the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Nikka’s grandfather and great grandmother left Vienna and immigrated to the United States during the Holocaust. Her father worked as an immigration lawyer, specializing in asylum, for more than 35 years, deepening Nikka’s commitment to New Americans. Nikka received her BA in sociology from Rice University and her MS in non-profit leadership from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. After college, Nikka took part in the Fulbright Teaching Assistant program in Taiwan, where she co-taught English in two elementary schools in Nan’ao, an Atayal and farming community in Yilan County. She served as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the University of Michigan-Dearborn where she opened their community involvement center, led an MLK service day for hundreds of students, directed two sold out shows of the Vagina Monologues, and re-launched the school’s Alternative Spring Break program. Nikka got her start in communications at Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy, working for non-profits, businesses, and government agencies in Philadelphia. During that time, she also co-founded PhilaSoup, a grassroots non-profit that brought teachers together over simple soup meals to raise money for classroom projects and to draw attention to the lack of funding for schools across the city. Outside of her work at the Fellowships, Nikka is passionate about education, politics, iced coffee, running, Philadelphia, and exploring with her husband, Peter, and their two children.