[3] She was the first woman whose thesis, titled Geology of Waiheke Island and supervised by Arthur Lillie, was primarily based on fieldwork and the first woman in New Zealand to conduct a major geological mapping project.
[5] The following year, she married Ian Nicholson, and the couple went on to have twin daughters.
[2] However, she retired in the 1970s due to ill health, and became active as a practitioner and adult-education teacher of craftwork.
[2] By now in her late 60s, Nicholson returned to the University of Auckland to undertake doctoral studies on the history of geological understanding in New Zealand.
[2] She completed her PhD thesis, titled The New Zealand greywackes: a study of changing geological concepts to 1985, supervised by Bernhard Spörli, in 2003, and is thought to be one of the oldest people in New Zealand to have earned a postgraduate degree in geology.