Nora is a professor and filmmaker. Born and raised in Virginia, she has taught at colleges and universities across the midwest and south. She currently teaches film production at the University of North Alabama.

Her monograph, How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960 - 2022, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. Her writing has appeared in the New Review of Film andTelevision Studies, Film Quarterly, Media Industries Journal, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television. Her recent short narrative film Lakebed won the Mitchell-West Women in Film Award at the Lindsey Film Festival.