Dr. Nikkel grew up in Salem, Oregon. He attended Dartmouth College, majoring in biophysical chemistry. He then spent two years teaching 8th-grade science with Teach for America in Henderson, NC before beginning his medical studies at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. During his medical studies, he spent a year doing a prestigious Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship at Columbia University in New York City where he received multiple national awards for research. He completed his Orthopaedic Surgery residency at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, and then joined the faculty and completed a fellowship in Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery at Duke University Medical Center, one of the premier joint replacement centers in the world. Dr. Nikkel is excited to return to Hershey to provide quality, minimally invasive, muscle-sparing hip replacement, partial and total knee replacement, and complex revision joint replacement care at the Penn State Bone and Joint Institute. In Dr. Nikkel's time, he enjoys running, spending time with his family, and home improvement projects.