Nicole graduated with her BSEE and MSEE from Texas Tech University though she originally hails from southern Louisiana. Following graduation, she served in the U.S. Air Force for 11 years, completing four combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as an engineer and Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer. After completing her military service, Nicole returned to graduate school to pursue research in therapeutic and diagnostic brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Her current project is to develop and investigate an electroencephalogram (EEG) based stroke rehabilitation BCI.