Nicole grew up in central Illinois where she earned her bachelor's degree in integrative biology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received her PhD in entomology from Michigan State University, where she investigated the role that urban gardens play in fostering diverse diurnal and nocturnal pollinator communities. As a postdoctoral fellow with the Resilience in Species and Ecosystems flagship of the Planet Texas 2050 Bridging Barriers initiative, Nicole's work examines how ecological communities are responding to anthropogenic changes to the environment, and how these changes affect ecosystem function. This research combines data collected from biodiversity, micro-climate, and ecosystem sensing technology with large biodiversity and environmental datasets.