Dr Nicholls is responsible for the day-to-day management of the University Museum of Natural History vertebrate palaeontology collections, including its access, care, development, and research. She has worked across a variety of vertebrate groups but her primary research interest lies in selachians and reptiles from the Mesozoic. Her PhD involved devising a novel approach to categorising elasmobranchs into eco-groups, and then testing for patterns in cohabitation across geological time and geographical space. In 2021, Dr Nicholls was part of the team of specialists that excavated the Rutland ichthyosaur, thought to be the largest, near-complete reptile skeleton found in Britain.
