Nicole received her B.S. from UC Santa Cruz in 2003 and performed research in the Krug lab as a CEA-CREST summer fellow and volunteer. She documented self-fertilization in the sea slug Alderia willowi, a phenomenon known only in 2 other sea slugs. Nicole then showed that selfing versus mating differentially affect the fecundity of slugs, suggesting a cost of mating due to hypodermic insemination.
Nicole is pursuing a Ph.D. in conservation biology at Texas A&M University.