NiCole's Notes
NiCole's Notes: The study guide for adulting. Witty, rigorous analysis of everything that matters: politics, love, illness, friendship, technology, aging, and the contradictions we live with. Sarcastic scholarship for the thinking Gen-X mind. Smart when it matters and Witty always.
A graduate from the University of Calgary, B.A. Political Science '95, B.A.Spanish '08, born with cystic fibrosis, a lung disease that has been trying to kill me since birth. Hanging on to life by the horns with only 26% lung function. I have 20+ years of experience building organizations and understanding how systems actually work.
Founder of the Summit Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis, raising 3.5+ million dollars for local research, Philanthropist of the year for Alberta in 2014, Honoured with the naming of a research lab at the Cumming School of Medicine, Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, at the University of Calgary in 2013. Featured in a documentary about my journey with CF and being a CrossFit athlete, while owning my own gym in 2018. I have been a part of a 350 million dollar fundraising campaign and had a 50' banner of my mug hanging off the Foothills Hospital for 4 years from 2003-2007.
Currently finishing two programs at the University of Calgary, one in Graphic Design (graduating June 15, 2026) and the other in Integrated Digital Media (graduating May 2027), my friends would consider me the Sassy Smurf out of the group.
I may have been given a cactus, but I don't have to sit on it.
NiCole's Notes
Evolution: Successful, not Perfect- Ep.2 of 3
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The classic argument for God is complexity: we're too intricate to be the result of accidents. But Nicole Zeller — a woman who has spent five decades inside a body that evolution built imperfectly and medicine rebuilt carefully — has a different read.
In this episode, she breaks down what evolution actually does and doesn't promise. She uses her own CFTR gene mutation as a case study in how biological tradeoffs work, and explains how Trikafta — the drug that changed her life — is a better argument for human ingenuity than for divine design.
The central idea: the universe is indifferent. Cruelty requires intent. Indifference just requires a response. And responding is exactly what we do.
Part two of the 3-episode arc: God, Guts & the Physics of Survival.
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