My name is Nicola Rose Walters. I am an artist, researcher, organizer, and teacher. I serve as a faculty member in the Department of Politics at Cal Poly Humboldt and am a doctoral student at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I will also be joining Southwestern College’s faculty to launch the Master’s program in Transformational Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in 2027.

With over 15 years of experience in teaching and organizing, I have worked across diverse classrooms, institutions, and community contexts. My work as a labor and community organizer is rooted in addressing complex, interconnected challenges through collaboration and care. I worked as the chair of Membership and Organizing for the largest faculty union in the country and was a founding member of a national coalition of academic labor, Higher Ed Labor United.

I bring together scholarship and creative practice through a commitment to relational, place-based inquiry, engaging art, storytelling, and critical research as pathways for understanding and transformation.

My research is guided by what I call a ter(re)matrix approach:

• Terrapsychology (Ter) – psychological relationship to place (Chalquist, 2023)
• Re-story-ation (re) – ecological and narrative repair (Nabhan, 1997; Kimmerer, 2013)
• Matrixial theory (matrix) – relational feminist philosophy emphasizing co-emergence and connection (Ettinger, 2006)

Together, this paradigm invites ways of knowing that are embodied, artistic, and accountable to both human and more-than-human worlds.

Methodologically, I call myself a h/e/a/r/tographer—engaging healing, earth, art, research, and teaching as interconnected relationships. This approach weaves together my relationships with each of these domains, drawing inspiration from the work of Rita L. Irwin, Patricia Rojas-Zambrano, and others in a/r/tographic inquiry.

Beyond academia, I am a partner, sister, daughter, and friend, committed to cultivating spaces of connection, critical reflection, and transformative possibility. I am an avid rock climber and outdoor adventurer, drawn to movement, challenge, and epic journeys. My life and work are deeply shaped by the places I have lived—Northern California, Portland, Oregon, and Northern New Mexico—as well as the communities I am in relationship with. I currently live in Portland, Oregon with my partner and our two beloved cats, Yana and Yumi.

Resources to explore:

Chalquist, C. (2023). Terrapsychological inquiry: Restorying our relationship with nature, place, and planet. Routledge.

Ettinger, B. L. (2006). The matrixial borderspace. University of Minnesota Press.

Irwin, R. L., Lasczik, A., Sinner, A., & Triggs, V. (2024). A/r/tography : Essential readings and conversations. Intellect Books.

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.

Nabhan, G. P. (1997). Cultures of habitat: On nature, culture, and story. Counterpoint.

Rojas-Zambrano, P. (2025). He/a/r/tography: Healing, art making, researching and teaching as more than a qualitative research method. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 38(9), 1426–1442. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2025.2452636