Nicole is an electrical engineer who graduated in January 2025 from Makerere University. She joined the Contextual Engineering Research Group in the summer of 2025 when she started her PhD under the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her focus is research in clean energy technologies grounded in the contextual engineering principles.
As a research intern with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Nicole contributes to the OE AFRICOM Defense Operational Resilience International Cooperation Effort. Also, she collaborates with researchers at the University of Huddersfield on assessing agricultural drying technologies for clean fuels, examining how and why technologies succeed or fail across different contexts. In Summer–Fall 2025, Nicole worked with the Army Corps on a research project concerning the adaptive capacity for risk analysis of critical infrastructure.
Until February 2025, she was a junior software project manager at The Dojo Hub, an innovation hub, where she collaborated with stakeholders and developers to build a fully functional AgriEnergy mobile application, available on the Google Play Store. Nicole has previously undertaken solar systems design and installation training with the Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC) under the Integration of On-Grid and Off-Grid Decentralized Renewable Energy Systems Project in Uganda.
Publication
“Implementation of a Unified Power Flow Controller for two interconnected solar mini-grids,” IEEE PES/IAS PowerAfrica Conference 2024, Johannesburg, South Africa, IEEE Xplore digital library
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Schedule 1: Survey Reporting and Deliverables Description
OTM Technology No. 2017-194, titled "Diagnostic Tool for Engineering
Effectiveness in Rural International Societies".
Creator: Ann-Perry Witmer
Brief Description:
The Survey provides a list of 41 questions (rated on 5-point Likert scales)
to evaluate relative influences of critical non-engineering conditions and
guidelines for selection/implementation of technologies within a rural
society. The Survey identifies design and implementation strategies that
enhance engineered infrastructure sustainability and durability.
"Survey Report":
The following information is provided in the Report.
RESULTS
Influence
Community Score
Country Weight
Weighted Score
Cultural
Political
Educational
Technical
Economic
· Column 1 lists the five community influences most likely to affect
design, implementation and acceptance of an engineered infrastructure.
· Column 2 shows the raw scores of each influence for the community, based
upon scores You provided after observing Your client.
· Column 3 draws upon open and free data from World Bank database of World
Development Indicators. Where data are lacking for Your country, those
absences are not included in calculations. Religious composition is
evaluated using open and free Pew Research Center data.
· Column 4 provides a weighted, relative influence score for Your client
community, factoring in national norms to identify the conditions that most
strongly govern your client's approach to an engineered infrastructure.
The following information is also provided: Guidelines for interpreting the
high and low scores of the contextual influences, and Guidelines as to how
to approach the design of the engineering infrastructure.
