Nieves Tapia is the founder and Director for CLAYSS, Latin American Center for Service-learning, an NGO based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Since a teenager, she engaged in community service, and became a national youth leader in the years of the last Argentinean dictatorship (1976-83) and during the transiiton to democracy.

From 1997 to 2010 she organized and directed Argentina Ministry of Education's first National service-learning programs, currently “Programa Nacional Educación Solidaria”.

She is a founding Board member of IARSLCE (International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement), and co-founder of the Iberian-American Service-learning Network. Since 2019 she is a member of the International Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (ACES).

She has offered hundreds of lectures, courses and technical assistance in Latin America and around the world and has published numerous books and articles on service-learning in several languages.

She has been honored as Argentina “Young Person of the Year” (1985), Eisenhower Fellow (1988) and National Service Fellow (1993) in the USA and received the NYLC Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award (2001).

Graduated in History in 1978, she taught at Buenos Aires University, Argentina Catholic University and FLACSO, among others.