Her teaching and research examines the intersections between critical literacy and civic engagement across multiple contexts, including urban secondary English classrooms, grassroots youth organizations, and digital learning communities. Nicole was previously the coordinator of the UCLA Council of Youth Research, a youth participatory action research (YPAR) collective in Los Angeles, and she continues to engage in YPAR today with youth in New York and New Jersey. Her first book, Doing Youth Participatory Action Research (Routledge, 2015), offers guidance to educators seeking to implement YPAR in their contexts. Nicole's work has also been published in a variety of journals, including English Journal, Voices from the Middle, Democracy & Education, and Review of Research in Education. She is currently working on a new book about empathy in the English classroom.