She created the position of food editor at The New York Times and was instrumental in the professional development of James Beard and Craig Claiborne.

[1] Nickerson was the first food editor and restaurant critic for the Times, filling the role from 1942 to 1957.

[4] She was also unusual at the time because nearly all of her work had news value; according to women's page journalism historian Kimberly Wilmot Voss, a professor of journalism at University of Central Florida, of 675 stories published during Nickerson's tenure at the Times as food editor, 646 had a news hook.

[5] Nickerson left the Times in 1957 to move to Florida after her husband had been relocated there; she did not resume her career until 1973 when she became food editor for The Ledger.

[4] She wrote that while Claiborne has been credited with modernizing the profession, Nickerson had started down that path years before he was hired as her replacement.

[4] Nickerson created or collected; adapted; and edited, uncredited, many of the recipes in Claiborne's 1961 The New York Times Cookbook.