Nicola Dennis is a recovering academic living near Dunedin, New Zealand. Nicola graduated with a honours degree in Biochemistry and Genetics back when dinosaurs roamed the halls and people were still figuring out if R programming was going to be a big deal or not. It was, as it turns out. So, in hindsight, Nicola is grateful for the patient lecturers who dragged her kicking and screaming through her data science education.

However, the second they left the door open, Nicola hightailed it to the Animal Genomics department in AgResearch Invermay to play with mass spectrometers and the blood of fat-bottomed myomax sheep.

A PhD opportunity opened up in a neuroscience laboratory in the University of Otago with a supervisor who knew how to write. Like Write with a capital W. It became evident that scientists need not be confined to stuffy three-paragraph-long sentences in the passive tense. Nicola jumped at the opportunity to learn how to write while pampering her lab mice and wrestling with PCR machines. After three years of red pen, redrafts upon redrafts, and a lot of heated arguments, Nicola could now time travel.

That is to say she could churn out large volumes of beautiful writing for hours on end and only stop occasionally to wonder what time it was or why she had a back ache.

During this time, she managed to keep 250 heifers alive as a dairy grazier. A momentous achievement given how often Friesians get their heads stuck in trees.
Released back into the wild with a doctorate, Nicola was a consulting scientist at AbacusBio for six years performing a variety of data science, greenhouse gas modelling, genetics and writing work for clients around the world. A chance encounter with a tall and mysterious editor resulted in Nicola writing for CountryWide Magazine on the side and this blog was born.

Nicola eventually doubled down on the writing and communication side of things, accepting a role as a market analyst for GlobalHQ – the publishers of Farmer’s Weekly and the AgriHQ market insight reports.

In November 2021, Nicola decided to take adulting up to the next level and start her own business. Nicola is available for data and writing projects. Contact Nicola if you need help understanding, automating, or communicating something that involves numbers, science or agriculture.

You can find Dr Nicola Dennis on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter!