About

Caroline Nickerson is the Executive Director and co-founder of Florida Community Innovation (FCI), a civic technology nonprofit. Caroline empowers over 100 student innovators from six different universities to build social services technologies, engage in research projects, and conduct public service efforts to benefit Floridians, including the Florida Resource Map, which promises to be the first-of-its-kind digital access point connecting Floridians to food banks, job resources, and more. 

Read about all of FCI’s projects in their handbook!

Caroline is the communications lead at CitSci, a global citizen science platform based at Colorado State University where researchers can create and manage projects (everything from participant recruitment, to data sheets, to data analysis). She loves helping tell researcher and participant stories and working to broaden engagement in science.

Caroline is all the director of communications and outreach at the Human Computation Institute, a nonprofit innovation center that collaborates with UC Davis, Cornell, and others for the betterment of society through novel methods leveraging the complementary strengths of networked humans and machines. Projects focus on diverse fields, including Alzheimer’s and mathematical research.

She has worked with SciStarter in various capacities, including as Senior Program Director at SciStarter where she managed the Citizen Science Month Program, SciStarter’s Corporate Volunteer Programs and other programmatic and outreach efforts, including working with SciStarter’s Syndicated Blog Network, which encompasses the Discover Magazine and SciStarter platforms, as well as large-scale programs with multiple federal agencies (including NASA, NOAA, and the National Library of Medicine) and global groups (including the United Nations Environment Programme). She currently works at SciStarter as a program specialist.

Caroline recently earned her PhD in Agricultural Education and Communication at the University of Florida. At UF, Caroline has worked on multiple projects, including a climate change communication series with UF/IFAS Extension, creating the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture community engagement team, research assessing the Restore the Shore project, and public engagement research about a certification for pollinator-friendly plants. She has also TA’d for multiple classes, including a social media class, a public policy class, and a multimedia communication class.

Caroline was a CEE-Change fellow with the North American Association for Environmental Education, and received a North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture teaching award in 2024. She is currently a CEE-Change mentor and researcher. Caroline was also a social entrepreneur in Rally’s cohort, which is supported by the City of Orlando and Orange County, among other partners.

Caroline is a Master of Public Policy graduate from American University, where she was a Reilly Environmental Policy Scholar, an honor conferred by the former director of the EPA, Bill Reilly. Caroline was an undergrad at the University of Florida and was one of the inaugural recipients of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Student Excellence Award, an honor conferred to only three graduating seniors. She graduated with honors as a double major in History and Chinese. 

In her spare time, she volunteers with the UF-VA Bioethics Unit, the Christensen Project (where she serves homeless and underserved groups), and others. 

Caroline also co-founded the Commission on Local Debates and produced multiple debates for local elections in Central Florida that ran on local news. 

As a fun fact, Caroline was the 2019 Cherry Blossom Princess representing the state of Florida and the grand prize scholarship winner at Miss Earth USA 2021 as Miss Louisiana Earth. She was also featured in a children’s book about open science!

Photo Credit: Eva Flis Photography