Youth Advisory Board

NEI’s Youth Advisory Board consists of education professionals and is dedicating to supporting students who want to pursue career paths in innovation and invention. This board will provide crucial insights to NEI, assisting in the creation of programs that encourage and support future generations of innovators and inventors.

Juli Shively

Chief Operations Officer at Innovation World™, Co-Founder of the Global Innovation Field Trip (GIFT) and Architect of the Innovation World Alliance, Juli Shively brings more than 30 years of customer support and operations management, 23 years of that time working with student innovation programs.

Expanding from local to national, and most recently to global initiatives, Shively understands the importance, strength, and breadth of influence possible as a member of a global collective, and works to support young innovators, educators and those who support and inspire innovation whenever, and wherever possible.

Nick Briere

Nick Briere, Executive Director of the Connecticut Invention Convention, is a lifelong believer in the power of invention. He began his invention journey at the age of seven, when he participated in his school’s Invention Convention program. In 2015, Nick co-founded the National Invention Convention, raising more than $5M to support invention education programs for more than 200,000 K-12 inventors.

Shortly following the acquisition of the National Invention Convention by the Henry Ford Museum in 2018, Nick left to take a leadership position at the Connecticut Invention Convention, and since has grown the organization to reach 23% of K-12 students in Connecticut with the Invention Convention program.

Erin Padilla

Erin Padilla, Director, Creative Haverhill, has been a part of creative communities for her entire life and has spent the last 10 years being an active leader within these communities by working in arts administration for non-profit community organizations. Creative Haverhill is a 501©3 organization that since 2008 has been supporting Haverhill arts and culture by providing experiences and access at the intersection of art, culture and community. As the single staff-member for this organization, Erin manages programs, operations, community relations and partnerships, and the organization’s capital campaign to transform a historic school in Haverhill into a community art center, Cogswell ArtSpace.