Nicole Shuman

Although not a Virginia native, Nicole spent her formative years in Richmond, and attended William & Mary, where she earned a B.A. in Government.  After her undergraduate education and a stint as a math tutor in an underserved high school in Lawrence, MA, she began apprenticing on farms.  Captivated by agriculture, she focused on learning as much as she could, and, in 2015, enrolled in Cornell University’s International Agriculture and Rural Development M.P.S. program.  To complete her degree, she joined the Peace Corps, and, in 2016, left for Paraguay as an Applied Agricultural Extension Volunteer.  In Paraguay, Nicole primarily worked with school and home gardens and on soil conservation, but she also participated in Peace Corps Paraguay’s redesign of the Agriculture Sector Framework, instructed Peace Corps Trainees in biointensive gardening, and assisted fellow Volunteers in strategy for a seed bank project.  Upon her return to the States, she was first hired as the summer intern in the King William Extension Office, and subsequently hired in Prince Edward as the Community Food Systems Agent.  There, she primarily worked with small producers of veggies, meat, and eggs, and she is excited about working with a wider variety of producers within Goochland.