She was awarded the L'Oréal for Women in Science Fellowship in 2009[1] and was inducted into the 2024 Class of the AIMBE College of Fellows for her research in intravital microscopy contributing to the understanding of microscale physiology.
[3] She studied physics at Harvard College, where she worked alongside Eric Mazur on femtosecond laser ablation.
[6] To study these mini-strokes she used a tightly focused laser light to excite a dye that had been injected into the bloodstream.
[7] In 2006, she moved to Cornell University, where was made a National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association Fellow.
[3] Nishimura was appointed to the faculty at Cornell in 2013, where she develops in vivo imaging techniques to study neurodegenerative disease and cancer metastasis.