We are pleased to have Dr. Katie Nichols as our keynote speaker for the 2025 Region III meeting in Louisville!

Dr. Katie Nichols became the Director of Mental Performance for Louisville Athletics in fall of 2022. Dr. Nichols oversees a team of mental performance coaches providing performance enhancement services to athletes, coaches, and support staff in a comprehensive and integrated sport psychology delivery model.

Nichols was previously a mental performance coach at Amplos, a performance psychology practice, where she served as a mental performance coach to Clemson Athletics. Her primary responsibilities include developing and implementing mental skill training to teams, one-on-one support with individual athletes, as well as comprehensive and integrated support and development to coaches and support staffs. While with Amplos, Nichols additionally facilitated performance enhancement services to corporate partners, including Global 500 companies.

Prior to Clemson, she served as the coordinator for student-welfare and development at the University of Notre Dame, primarily focused on student-athlete leadership development and community outreach programming. She also spent six years at the University of Missouri and worked as a mental performance coach to teams and individual student-athletes. While at Missouri, she studied under the legendary sport psychology professional, Dr. Rick McGuire, and earned her master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with focus in Career and Sport Psychology in 2014 and her doctoral degree in Sport Psychology Performance in 2017. Nichols was awarded the 2017 Doctoral Student Practice Award from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). Nichols earned bachelors’ degrees in Psychology and Sport Science from the University of Kansas in 2011.

Outside of her work, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Wes, and their basset hound, Palmer.