ENDORSEMENTS

Without exaggeration, Facilitating Change in Coastal Science and Policy was one of the best taught courses I have ever taken. Nicole perfectly balanced preparation with thoughtfulness and care for her students. I would take any class taught by Nicole in an instant. She is an instructional savant. She leveraged her professional connections to some of the most brilliant minds I have come across and invited them as guest lecturers. This reinforced learning in this class as we were introduced to useful tools to use in our work. I would rate this as the best online class I have ever attended -- we did many useful exercises in pairs and debriefed in plenary. Nicole also tailored assignments based on the materials we had read that helped me in reflecting back on course content.

I've been working with Nicole for several years and can't recommend her enough for helping work through tough systems-based problems and bringing innovative ideas to life. We started working together to manage and adapt an Exempted Fishing Permit issued by NOAA NMFS to bring an old fishing gear back to life that promised to address conservation concerns in the established Rockfish Conservation Areas with many stakeholders and barriers to entry and adoptions. In addition, we also work with Nicole on some of the organization's strategic planning and broader innovative initiatives. Her experience and approach with human design is very effective and resulted in a deep set of questioning and resulting answers that would not have emerged otherwise. Lastly, most importantly she is awesome to work with - great communication, patient, motivated, positive, and fun!

Nicole's expertise has fundamentally changed the way I view complex problem solving. Since she introduced me to the concept of user centered design, I can't help but see it's utility everywhere. She is thoughtful in her approach and thorough in her execution. She also happens to be a lot of fun to work with.

I cannot recommend Nicole highly enough. She is extremely bright, capable, and a real pleasure to work with. Nicole is an excellent facilitator and coordinator, leading the integration of a lot of disparate tools and materials into [EDF's] Fisheries Toolkit, which is used by fishery practitioners all over the world to increase food production and profits from their fisheries while improving their conservation performance... She has that rare combination of intelligence, competence, warmth, and good humor that made her a highly valued staffer and a wonderful team player.