Staff Graphic Designer
A graphic design major at Marywood University, Niki will complete her undergraduate studies in December 2017. She transferred from Northampton Community College where she earned an Associate degree in the same major. Niki is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honor Society for two-year colleges.
She has always been artistically inclined, and chose this field because it’s a dynamic and growing industry. Ideally, Niki wants to use her art to help people, or to cause a discussion. Her ideal job is one in which she’d be working for causes she believes in.
“I like political art, uncomfortable art, things that make you squirm or start a conversation,” Niki said. “I deeply respect artists such as Jon McNaughton and Luba Lukova, who create strong political paintings/graphics representing completely opposing ideals, but which I am drawn to for their honesty nonetheless.”
In addition to her course work at Marywood, Niki donated her time on the decorations committee for the annual Kidstuff program, a crafts fair and mini carnival for underprivileged children. She also participated in the annual Phonathon, a fundraising effort. She currently interns with ScrantonMade and has a part-time job at Sears.
Outside of school and work, she loves reading and making art. Niki is practicing hand lettering, a discipline within typography. She has self-published three books, two of them the results of her participation in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a writing project in which participants write a 50,000 word book in the month of November. For the past eight years, Niki has worked at a summer horseback riding camp, teaching children how to handle and ride horses. She also gives horseback riding lessons on weekends. Working with both the people and the horses has become a passion that she intends to follow for as long as she possibly can.
Niki was born in China and adopted by her parents when she was an infant and routinely hears the stereotypical question about being good at math and/or science. She’s awful at both!
We should care about addiction because they are people just as we are, people who have developed non-socially acceptable/destructive coping methods. Addiction can happen to anyone. After all, don’t many “functional” people use shopping, video games, or relationships as forms of addiction? We are made to help, serve, and care for everyone — even, and especially, the marginalized.
Writing Wrongs 