She works with innovative, applied scientific approaches that bridge ecological remediation, restoration, waste management and biotechnology to develop interdisciplinary teams of industry, governmental, academic and community organization partners for greatest impact. Two representative projects of her own founding are Healing City Soils program, which offers free soil metal testing for farmers and maps soil quality data, and DIY Fungi, which offers education and resources about mushroom cultivation for food, medicine, remediation and waste management.

During college, while pursuing her B.A. and M.A. in Spanish literature, she spent a lot of time in Mexico, Central America and Spain and was as fascinated by the food culture and history, as well as by the magical realism it was infused with. Her fascination with the magic, power and beauty of cooking lead her to a career as a chef and caterer in Seattle. After nearly a decade of city life and the high-end food industry (and even delving into molecular gastronomy and teaching cooking classes at Google’s Seattle office) she longed to be closer to the source, to the soil. She started going wild foraging for nettles, mushrooms and clams and took classes on ethnobotany, mycology, ancestral skills and permaculture.

For the last 15 years Nicholas has been based in the Mojave Desert community of Joshua Tree, CA, working professionally as a consultant, designer and builder on a wide range of sustainable building projects in the Western U.S. and Denmark. The majority of his work involves structures, including buildings that shelter and nourish, and the visible and invisible structures that support regenerative life in buildings and the landscape that surrounds. Areas of focus in Nicholas’ work include passive solar/ climate-adaptive/ energy-efficient building design & construction, non-toxic & healthy building materials & systems, adaptive re-use of salvaged materials, rainwater harvesting buildings & earthworks, and greywater irrigation systems.