Nina Takahashi

Nina Takahashi has spent eight years working to ensure that children's media reflects the diversity of the real world. Growing up as a Japanese-American child, Nina rarely saw characters who looked like her in the books on her school library shelves. That experience became the driving force behind a career dedicated to inclusive representation in children's publishing.

Nina began her career at Penguin Random House Children's as Diversity Program Manager, where she developed guidelines for authentic representation across the publisher's children's titles and led sensitivity review processes for over 300 books. She was instrumental in increasing the percentage of books featuring characters of color from 22% to 41% during her four-year tenure. She also served as a consultant for the We Need Diverse Books initiative, advising publishers and authors on authentic representation of diverse families, disabilities, and cultural backgrounds.

At Wondeme, Nina ensures that the AI illustration system can authentically represent children of all ethnicities, skin tones, hair types, and abilities — including children who use wheelchairs, hearing aids, or glasses. She reviews every new theme and story template for cultural sensitivity and inclusive language. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from UCLA with a focus on media representation, and sits on the advisory board of the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.