Nicole Faria is an Indian supermodel and actress from Bangalore who represented India at Miss Earth 2010 on 4th December 2010 at the Vinpearl Land in Nha Trang, Vietnam. She was the first Miss Earth from India. She was 19-years-old when she won the crown and went onto creating a history.

Nicole entered the beauty pageant world when she was 15-years-old and started working in the industries in Delhi, Mumbai, Sri Lanka, and Colombia. She decided to participate in Femina Miss India 2010 where she was crowned Femina Miss India Earth 2010. She represented India at Miss Erath 2010 pageant where with her strong and confident performance she was declared as the winner at the end of the event finale. After her crowning, when Nicole came back to India, she mentioned in one of her interviews that winning a beauty pageant has helped her travel the world, meet new and interesting people who are warm and kind. A lot of projects came up to her and she was very thankful that she can taste the different culture and traditions which eventually comforts her.

She won Miss Talent, the first special award in the 10th Miss Earth pageant.She performed a graceful belly dance that combined Oriental and Middle Eastern styles in an event that raised VND 100 million, which was donated to the HCM City Red Cross, to support flood victims in the central region of Vietnam. Nicole’s family members were very sure that she will win the title, “we knew she would win. We were hardly surprised," says George Pearson, Nicole's uncle. He also mentioned that the diva owes a large part of her success to her father, who has always motivated her to win. It was he who taught her how to talk, how to walk. He groomed her to be a winner. George also added that Nicole's motivational lessons began when she was young and so did the grooming.

When she returned to India to carry out her duties as the new Miss Earth 2010, Nicole was ranked 10th of the list of the Times’ 50 Most Desirable Women of 2010 in January 2011. Nicole was flooded with projects that she loved to be a part of. She walked at the fashion show organized by the Cotton Council International, the producer of one of the most-talked-about TV reality show in India, Let's Design, which was held in Bangalore in February 2011. She has hosted musical fest, India Cyclothon etc many such prestigious events where with immense confidence she has put herself at her best. The Round Table India conferred Faria with the Pride of Karnataka Award on 6th May 2011 for putting India back on the beauty map by winning the Miss Earth 2010 crown.

She talked about earth-related issues such as global warming, environmental hazards, ecotourism, and nature imbalance to wherever country she travelled. She also made a trip to Washington, where she was interviewed by the media regarding her victory at Miss Earth and her environmental platform. Faria was chosen as the global Brand Ambassador of Frédérique Constant, a manufacturer of Swiss luxury wrist watches based in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland in 2011. She travelled on 16th June 2011 to Switzerland to attend the anniversary of Frédérique Constant, where she led the charity auction benefiting the International Children's Heart Foundation and donated a total of US$75,000 to the foundation. She arrived in the Philippines from Bangkok on 26th July 2011 to help promote the Philippine government's programs that was aimed at saving and protecting the environment. She attended a press briefing in Pasig City together with Miss Earth Water 2011 Watsaporn Wattanakoon of Thailand, and Miss Earth Air 2011 Victoria Shchukina of Russia. Her press briefing was followed by a visit to SM Supermarket to promote the chain's "I am Plastic-Free Campaign". She visited Tayuman Elementary School in Rizal as part of the foundation's "I Love My Planet Earth School Tour", and participated in coastal clean-up and tree planting at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Eco-Tourism Area. She spoke in the conference and performed an eco-fashion show, media interview, and tree planting ceremony, and participated in the environmental parade, "Peace for Earth".

In India, she focused her reign on addressing Bangalore's lakes, which have rapidly dwindled in the past 30 years from about 270-300 lakes to about 80, due to industrial development, and which have been heavily polluted by human and industrial waste. She is involved with the local United Way in an initial lake clean-up project with the government and has also partnered with the Sherwood Institute, a non-profit arm of Sherwood Design Engineers, a San Francisco, California-based firm with proven results in international projects of scale relating to fresh, clean water. Faria has been promoting the use of solar energy as a better source of power. She partnered with a Bangalore company (U Solar) to promote awareness about using the sun's renewable energy that can greatly reduce humanity's dependence on fossil fuels. Faria was accompanied by Miss Earth Air 2011 Victoria Shchukima from Russia, Miss Earth Water 2011 Watsaporn Wattanakoon from Thailand, and Miss Earth Fire 2011 Yeidy Bosques as they visited Thailand's flooded areas to provide moral support, distribute food and assistance. She travelled during 90 percent of her Miss Earth reign. She ended her reign by crowning her successor Olga Alava of Ecuador during the Miss Earth 2011 final's night held in Manila, Philippines on 3rd December 2011.

After her reign as Miss Earth 2010 ended, Nicole kept working for the betterment of the world. On 29th January 2012, she ran for a cause to spread awareness about the detrimental effect of pollution on the Rabindra Sarovar Lakes that was organized by the West Bengal Government along with the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority and the Kolkata Improvement Trust. She was one of the featured models in the 2014 Kingfisher swimsuit calendar shot in the Philippines.

In 20th January 2018, Faria was bestowed the First Ladies Award by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind for winning Miss Earth 2010. The Ministry of Women and Child Development of India selected the awardees from across India after an extensive research process. The award was bestowed on 112 women who were the first to achieve a significant milestone in their respective fields.

In April 2012, she posed for Vogue Australia with Puerto Rican star Joan Smalls, Australian Shanina Shaik, and Tunisian model Hanaa Ben Abdesslem under the theme "celebration of diversity with a truly beautiful global issue". Faria was cast as a lead actress in the 2014 Bollywood film Yaariyan. Nicole has completed her 10-years in the beauty pageant world and feels very grateful to be a part of such prestigious and glorious stage. She is the first and the only Miss Earth from India and her crowning has not only made her family proud but the entire nation proud. Her work during her reign is highly regarded and appreciated by the government as well as the pageant fanatics. Nicole got married to her long time boyfriend Rohan Powar in January 2020.