Nicoló studied at the Uni­ver­si­ties of Lou­vain and Na­mur in Bel­gium. Af­ter a decade work­ing in de­vel­op­ment with nonprof­its and in­ter­na­tion­al or­ga­ni­za­tions, he joined IPA. Based in Burk­i­na Faso, he served as Coun­try Di­rec­tor for Fran­coph­o­ne West Africa for 5 years, over­see­ing a grow­ing port­fo­lio of field ex­per­i­ments. He is now the Re­search Di­rec­tor for the Cen­ter for Child Well-be­ing and De­vel­op­ment at the University of Zurich and a PhD candidate at the University of Florence within the DELoS Program.