Professor Nicols graduated from UC Berkeley, and did his PhD at UCLA and at the Universität Freiburg. He has held regular appointments at Freiburg, at Stanford University, and at the University of Oregon. He has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Munich, Heidelberg, Cologne, Münster and Tübingen. He has also received  a number of grants from the DAAD, the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.  In 2009 he received a Williams Fellowship for his teaching, and in 2010 the University's Westling Award for service, and in the same year also a research fellowship from the von Humboldt Foundation that took him to the Universities of Münster and Munich, and to the German Archaeological Institute. 

Nicols became Professor Emeritus in June of 2011, and remains active in research (a forthcoming book), teaching and service.  He has accepted an invitation to become a von Humboldt Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Universität Tübingen in the spring and summer of 2012.

Professor Nicols has devoted much of his scholarly career to understanding how asymmetrical social relations serve to unify society and is especially interested in the practice of patronage and clientele in the Roman Empire. Current and forthcoming publications include, "The Practice of Hospitium on the Roman Frontier", "Civic Patronage in the Roman Empire", "The Crisis of the 3rd Century", and "Civic Ritual and Civic Patronage".

Concurrently, he and his colleague James C. Mohr, serve as the editors of the Mapping History Project, a set of interactive historical maps the publication of which has been facilitated by Pearson Education and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Professor Nicols is a member of the department of Classics and formerly director of the Society of College Scholars and of the Humanities Program.