Nicolas Hardisty is the current Director of Operations and former Program Manager for Tall Ships America, the national sail training organization representing the United States. His work with Tall Ships America has been guided by a desire to remove financial barriers to participation in the maritime world and create educational and career development opportunities for underrepresented populations.

After graduating from high school at 15, Nicolas sailed on tall ships and worked in marine trades until eventually shifting into sales. Disillusioned with organizations that valued profits over people, he found fulfillment in the nonprofit sector with Foster Forward. Nic’s work with Foster Forward connected him with youth who were largely aging out of the foster care system, and disproportionately at risk for unemployment, homelessness, and incarceration. He collaborated with talented staff and academic partners to develop and implement an award-winning work readiness program.

Nic then earned a B.A. and M.A. in History from Rhode Island College with coursework rooted in African American and Colonial Atlantic histories. His master’s thesis was a microhistory that explored concepts of Black citizenship in post-Emancipation United States and presented a new narrative of President McKinley’s 1901 assassination that he argued was the most accurate telling of the event to date.

Nic has been an instructor of history at Community College of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and is currently an instructor of Maritime History at Northeast Maritime Institute. He regularly presents his academic articles at conferences and has spoken on historic diversity in the American maritime workforce, post-Emancipation Black education and citizenship, presidential assassinations and heroism, the World War I American Ambulance Corps, ideology in the late 20th century American punk subculture, paramilitary violence in Interwar Yugoslavia, and vicarious trauma among historians.

In 2021, Nicolas co-founded Global Empire & Resistance Scholarship, an academic collective that hosts conferences on resistance with the intention of connecting scholars and practitioners/social justice groups. The organization’s focus is on supporting BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, international, and early career scholars. Nicolas was a founding member of the tall ship industry’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and was also a member of the COPE° Working Group on Psychological Safety, Bullying and Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Maritime Sector. He currently serves on the New England Regional World History Association executive council and is an advisor with the Battle of Rhode Island Association.

Nicolas was named to the Rhode Island College Faculty of Arts & Sciences Alumni Honor Roll, which recognizes Rhode Island College alumni who have “brought honor to the college by distinguished achievement in their field.” In 2024, he received a commendation from the National Park Service for his work with the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route on developing the Women on the Water program, which provides shoreside and shipboard instruction in maritime skills and history to young women.