Christakis graduated from Harvard College with a degree in social anthropology in 1986.[1] She was one of the first undergraduate interns at Harvard's Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations and studied in Kenya in 1985.[2] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Christakis worked on public health projects in Bangladesh and Ghana and served as a case manager for indigent adults with mental illness and addiction in Boston.[3]
In 1990, Christakis obtained a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University, with a concentration in international health. In 1993, she obtained a second master's degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on the role of education campaigns to prevent HIV infection and to improve maternal and child health. Christakis obtained her third master's degree in 2008, in early childhood education, from Lesley University and was then licensed in Massachusetts as an early childhood teacher and preschool director.
Since the 1990s, Christakis has worked as a preschool teacher, college administrator and instructor, educational consultant, and writer and journalist.
In 2013, Christakis moved to Yale University, where she was appointed Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at the Yale Child Study Center.[5] At Yale, she has taught undergraduate courses in child policy, early childhood education, and child development. She was appointed Associate Master of Silliman College, one of Yale's 12 residential colleges, in the spring of 2015, a post she held until June 2016.[6]
During her time as a Co-Master of Pforzheimer HouseatHarvard in 2012, Christakis was involved in the defense of free expression. She came to the defense of minority students who were using satire to criticize the final clubs at that institution, arguing that policing free expression on campus "denies students the opportunity to learn to think for themselves."[34] In another column that same year, she came to the defense of a high school student wearing a T-shirt supporting gay rights.[35]
In October 2015, in her capacity as Associate Master of Silliman College (one of 14 undergraduate units that make up Yale College), Christakis wrote an email to Silliman students regarding the role of free expression in universities. Her note was in response to a directive from the Yale Intercultural Affairs Committee that provided guidelines regarding Halloween costumes for all undergraduates.[36] Christakis argued that, from a developmental perspective, students might wish to consider whether administrators should provide such guidance to college-age students.[37] This claim engendered mixed reactions on campus, but The Atlantic noted that "her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement."[38][39] At the end of the academic year (in June 2016), Christakis decided no longer to teach at Yale, and, on the anniversary of the events (in October 2016), she described the difficult circumstances she had faced, expressing concern that a "culture of protection may ultimately harm those it purports to protect."[20] By 2023, the 2015 events had come to be seen, in retrospect, as indicators of a worrisome sea change in attitudes on American university campuses.[40][41]
Christakis is married to scientist and author Nicholas Christakis and they have four children, one of whom they adopted later in life, while serving as foster parents.[43][44]