The road out of Davis is a narrow one, winding through the high country before it ever reaches the wider world. Nevaeh Nichols followed it all the way to California and this spring, she came out the other side with a Stanford degree in hand.
A 2022 graduate of Tucker County High School, Nevaeh has earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Stanford University, graduating with distinction in the top 10 percent of her class. A first-generation, low-income student and the first in her family to attend college, she arrived on “The Farm” – as Stanford is known carrying her Appalachian roots clear across the country, and proceeded to make the most of every opportunity within reach.
At Stanford, she built her studies around a primary specialization in International Security and a secondary one in Comparative International Governance, capping the degree with a policy practicum under Professor Erica Gould. Over a single quarter, she conducted a research project for CARE International that went on to inform the organization’s advocacy around the International Labour Organization’s Convention 190-proof that even an undergraduate’s work can travel well beyond the classroom.
And travel it did. Nevaeh’s college years were defined less by lecture halls than by the places her curiosity took her. As a Cardinal Quarter Fellow through Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service, she completed four fellowships, three of them spent close to home, working summers with the Tucker Community Foundation in Parsons. She studied in Florence and she worked in Washington through the Stanford in Washington program, serving in the office of U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley. She also served as a Young Diplomats Fellow in Brussels, getting a firsthand look at international diplomacy, and during the school year she interned with the Council on Foreign Relations on its Corporate Affairs team.
Her credentials reached the highest levels of public service. Nevaeh was selected for – and received Secret-level security clearance for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Internship Program, assigned to the Office of Global Criminal Justice. The placement was ultimately cancelled amid the 2025 federal hiring freeze, but the selection alone marked her as one of the country’s most promising young people drawn to diplomacy. Back on campus her senior year, she brought that same seriousness to the everyday, advising fellow students on their finances as a Member Advisor and Student Ambassador at the Stanford Federal Credit Union.
If there’s a thread running through all of it, it’s leadership. Nevaeh served as financial officer for Stanford Planned Parenthood Generation Action and belonged to both Stanford Women in Law and the Stanford Pre-Law Society. She joined Kappa Alpha Theta her freshman year, stepped up as Human Resources Director her sophomore year, and sat on the DEI Committee, where she advocated for first-generation and low-income students like herself.
Her largest role came as President of Stanford’s Intersorority Council, where she led every sorority on campus. Working directly with university administration, she pushed to mend the long-strained relationship between Greek life and the institution and championed more equitable housing – an effort that will see each sorority meeting standards earn a house of its own. For that dedication to service and to the broader Stanford community, she was honored with the Stanford Alumni Association’s Award of Excellence.
What comes next keeps her pointed toward the public good. This fall, Nevaeh heads to Los Angeles to join Edelson PC, a plaintiff-side firm, where she’ll work as a mass torts paralegal focused on wildfire litigation. The longer plan is law school – a J.D., and a career in international humanitarian or international criminal law, taking on mass atrocities and the treaties meant to prevent them.
From a town of a few hundred in the West Virginia highlands, to the heart of Silicon Valley, to Europe, and now to Los Angeles, Nevaeh Nichols has carried Tucker County with her every step of the way. Her friends, family, and neighbors couldn’t be prouder – and they’ll be watching, eagerly, to see where the road leads next.
