Shelly Burgess Nicotra, MA, FIT/OGA

Instructor

Shelly Burgess Nicotra earned a dual B.A. from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. from Syracuse University. She taught Art History for several years at the Syracuse University in Florence, Italy program before embarking on a career in marketing and television production in New York City.  She served as the Executive Producer of the Emmy-award winning Lidia’s Kitchen for over a decade.

After discovering that her youngest son had dyslexia, she pursued her Associate Level certification in the Orton-Gillingham approach through the Orton-Gillingham Academy (OGA) and worked 1:1 with students for several years under the supervision of Dr. Pledger Fedora of the Dyslexia Institute of Language and Learning.  She subsequently became an independent Certified Level Orton-Gillingham Practitioner through the OGA in 2023 and worked with students in a 1:1 setting. She is currently an OGA Fellow-in-Training and is very excited to be joining the Stern Center as a Structured Literacy Instructor.