Nicola is a registered nurse, and her research builds on a productive clinical career in the NHS and independent hospices, including ten years supporting quality improvement in care homes and home care settings. Having completed her PhD in 2021, she has progressed her career in applied research focused on ageing and dementia in the School of Health Sciences and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Wessex. Her PhD was an ethnography of multi-professional involvement in the advance care planning process in two nursing homes. Through her post-doctoral research activity, she has enhanced her research leadership and methodological expertise, including mixed methods and creative approaches, and developed collaborations with care home and extra-care housing providers, which is underpinning development of a practitioner academic role in these settings.