Nicole started her fire engineering career just over 40 years ago with a 1-year industrial training placement at the Fire Research Station (FRS), Borehamwood as part of her BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, Statistics and Computing at the University of Greenwich/Thames Polytechnic. During that year she was part of the pioneering CFD modelling team, validating the use of this then novel technique for the computer simulation of fire growth and smoke movement.
This sparked such an interest that for her final year she was researching the introduction of a radiation model into the FRS model, before embarking on her PhD studies into the Computer Simulation of Fire and Sprinkler Interaction. This was followed by further years of research including fires in aircraft and other compartment fires and supervising other research projects. During that period, she was also teaching units in mathematics and even used examples of heat transfer.
In 1996 she embarked on her fire engineering consulting career. This opened up another world of engineering and construction both here in the UK and internationally. It also allowed her to develop the prototype of the evacuation model STEPS which is applied around the world to this day.
Over the last 28 years, her project portfolio consists of more than 100 projects here in the UK and overseas, ranging from exhibition centres, schools, universities, to infrastructure projects involving power stations, road and rail tunnels, various railway premises and a bridge. A small named sample includes Wembley stadium and Old Trafford Cricket ground; Universities including Hertfordshire, Manchester and Birkbeck; heritage buildings like Tedworth House; design reviews for the Jubilee Line Extension project; the redevelopment of Kings’ Cross Underground station; various fire safety consultations over the years on the Crossrail project (now the Elizabeth Line); HS1 and HS2 (both on the client and consultant side); through to the 2nd Avenue Subway in New York and the high-speed rail tunnel in Hong Kong.
She was the Chair of the Rail Industry Fire Association (2020 – 2022) and a member of FSH/14/-/9 developing BS 9992 (2020) – Fire safety in the design, management and use of rail infrastructure - Code of practice; and a member of World Road Association (PIARC) Working Group 3 – Human Factors in Tunnel Safety (2013-2014) developing Improving safety in road tunnels through real-time communication with users. She has written and presented more than 70 publications, seminars, lectures, training courses and conferences; and has been an external examiner for PhD students. In 2024 she was honoured with a lifetime achievement award by Women in Fire Safety.