Nicole is focused on the interface of chemistry and biology with a particular emphasis on harnessing the principles of organic chemistry to enable the creation of precision genetic medicines. She earned her Ph. D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University where she studied monocyclic beta-lactam antibiotics and elucidated the mechanism through which they are biosynthesized. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in the laboratory of Professor David R. Liu where she expanded the capabilities of base editing technology by inventing and creating the first adenine base editor (ABE) through directed evolution and engineering. Both her doctoral and postdoctoral work culminated in prominent Nature publications in the fields of natural product chemistry and gene editing respectively. Nicole is an inventor on numerous base editing patents and is Vice President of Gene Editing at Beam Therapeutics where her team advances and engineers precision gene editing tools. Nicole is a recipient of the 2018 American Chemical Society's “Talented 12” award, recognized as a 2018 STAT News Wunderkind, a 2018 TEDMED Hive honoree, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News “Top 10 Under 40 of 2019”, BioSpace’s 2019 “10 Life Science Innovators Under 40 to Watch”, MIT’s 2019 Technology Reviews’ 35 Innovators Under 35, Business Insider’s 30 Under 40 in 2020, Fortune Magazine’s 40 Under 40 in Healthcare, Endpoint News’s 2021 20 Under 40 in biopharma, and Johns Hopkins 2022 Distinguished Alumna Award.