He is the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and Professor of History at The Ohio State University.

He has appeared regularly on C-SPAN,[2][3][4] and has been a frequent guest on public radio, on television, and on podcasts and blogs as a commentator on issues of U.S. foreign and domestic politics in historical perspective including the Washington Post,[5][6] Foreign Policy,[7] the Oregonian,[8] the Huffington Post,[9] the History News Network,[10] Philosophy Talk (aired on NPR),[9] etc.

[12] Nichols gave a TEDx TED Talk on April 21, 2018, at TEDxPortland, entitled “The Untold Story of American Isolationism” (aka “Why History Matters Today”).

[13] Nichols’ research focuses on the intellectual history of the United States’ role in the world from the Civil War period to the present, with an emphasis on isolationism, internationalism, and globalization.

Nichols is an advocate for the importance of history and the humanities in education and as a way to understand and address some of the most urgent contemporary problems.