Ilona Nickels

Ilona Nickels has 30  years of Capitol Hill experience. She lectures regularly in Washington, D.C. on the Congress for the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, the Washington Campus MBA program, the Brookings Institution, and the U.S. Senate Education and Training Office.

Ms. Nickels began her career as a congressional staff aide, working both in the House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. She then joined the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress as a congressional analyst. Her primary responsibilities during 13 years with CRS were training Members of Congress and their staff in House and Senate floor procedures, and included extensive assignments, on detail, in the office of the Senate Minority Leader and the House Majority Leader.

She then spent 6 years as Resident Scholar for C-SPAN, where she answered questions about politics, elections, and the Congress for C-SPAN viewers, on-air and on-line, and most recently served as a Research Scholar for the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

Ms. Nickels is the author of Why Congress Matters, a publication offered for sale in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center. She has been a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel, NPR, and CNN.com. For more information, please visit the Ilona Nickels website.