Dr. Nichols received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Arizona.  She currently is an Assistant Professor in the University of Iowa Global Health Studies Program and the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences.  She is also the faculty mentor for the Summer GHS SVYM Internship Program.

Dr. Nichols is a broadly trained human-environment geographer with specializations in feminist, health, and agro-food geographies. She has conducted research across northern, eastern, and central India investigating agriculture, health, gender, and food and nutrition security. ​ She has a long-standing interest in the politics of food and nutrition policy in the context of India, especially in an era of revamped enthusiasm around nutrition within global health and development forums.  In considering human-environment-health relationships, she has used qualitative, ethnographic, and feminist methods to understand how health and social inequities are produced, reproduced, and experienced by different stakeholders. You can find a recent publication in the journal Geoforum here.  Go to Research and Creative Work to see other selected publications.  

She also has an active interest in publishing in non-scholarly venues and in collaborating with community-based organizations working to address food insecurity and sustainability issues, such as WFAN Women Food & Ag Network.  She has served as faculty mentor for a Global Health Studies Honors Thesis which focused on the Food Pantry at Iowa, and conducted research that used community-based participatory methods with the Southern Arizona Community Food Bank (CFB) to better understand food insecurity experiences across Southern Arizona.

At U Iowa, she has taught courses on global food geographies, sustainable development alternatives, research design, and introduction to Global Health Studies.