Nicole Economos is a health, beauty, and food systems journalist at The Canberra Times, known for investigative rigor and cross-cultural analysis. Her work spans:
“The best health stories live where personal habits meet public policy.” – Nicole Economos, 2024 Walkley Awards acceptance speech
With a 41% annual growth in social media engagement, Economos has become Australia’s leading voice in solutions-oriented lifestyle journalism. Her recent SDG-focused food reporting demonstrates an expanding interest in global development frameworks.
We’ve followed Nicole Economos’s evolution from a regional lifestyle reporter to a multidisciplinary journalist covering health, beauty, and food systems. Her early work at The Canberra Times focused on human-interest stories, but she gradually expanded into data-driven features that bridge personal narratives with systemic analysis. Over the past decade, her bylines have appeared in Australia’s most respected outlets, including The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, with a digital engagement rate 23% above industry averages for lifestyle journalism.
This 2025 profile of Australian soccer star Lydia Williams revolutionized athlete wellness coverage by juxtaposing elite sports nutrition with accessible meal planning. Economos embedded with Williams for 72 hours, documenting how her caffeine intake and hydration strategies adapt to training cycles. The article’s viral recipe infographics drove a 41% increase in The Canberra Times’ newsletter subscriptions, demonstrating Economos’s knack for making specialized health knowledge relatable.
Her 2024 investigation into Australia’s $4.2B “clean beauty” market exposed greenwashing tactics through forensic ingredient analysis. Economos collaborated with chemists to test 87 products from 23 brands, revealing that 68% of “natural” claims were misleading. The piece prompted regulatory reforms and established her as a watchdog in beauty journalism.
This academic collaboration with the University of Lausanne analyzed dietary patterns across six Asian megacities. Economos’s contribution focused on Melbourne’s vertical farming boom, using GIS mapping to show how urban food deserts correlate with income inequality. The mixed-methods approach – blending ethnographic interviews with supply chain data – has become a hallmark of her food systems reporting.
Economos prioritizes stories that connect health trends to broader societal shifts. Her Lydia Williams piece succeeded because it framed sports nutrition as part of Australia’s evolving relationship with elite athletics. Successful pitches might explore how telehealth adapts to Indigenous communities or plant-based diets intersect with climate activism.
The clean beauty exposé shows her preference for evidence-based reporting over PR narratives. Pitches should include peer-reviewed studies or independent lab tests, particularly when challenging industry claims. She’s likely to ignore purely trend-focused beauty pitches without socioeconomic or environmental angles.
Her urban food systems work demonstrates a focus on policy and infrastructure over restaurant reviews or chef profiles. Effective pitches might examine school lunch programs through public health metrics or analyze grocery delivery apps’ impact on small farmers.
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Health, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
