Nichole "Nikki" Peterson, administrative assistant for the Office of Marketing Communications and an executive assistant for the campus' Chief Diversity Officer, has been named July's Employee of the Month by the Staff Employees Council.

Peterson, according to nominator Thomas White, executive director of Marketing Communications, is a "superbly talented individual who handles all tasks with great efficiency, with an outstanding attitude toward her co-workers, as well as with other University faculty, staff and students."

"Nikki truly embodies the spirit of collaboration that is such a hallmark for our campus culture," White wrote in his nomination letter.

White said Peterson's duties often are reflective of a highly complex workday that can shift dramatically due to the nature of the work that is done in Marketing Communications. In addition, Peterson holds the dual responsibility of serving as executive assistant to the campus' Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Reginald Stewart.

"Nikki balances all of these duties with an ever-present smile and words of encouragement to all who seek her help," White wrote. "In many ways, she is my partner and confidante in ensuring that our office performs nimbly, and at a high level for the many marketing and communications tasks we are asked to perform by the University."

White said perhaps the "best example" of Peterson's "can-do" attitude occurred last spring, when Marketing Communications moved from two locations in Clark Administration and the Jones Center to a new space in the Continuing Education Building.

"This move, which included moving two groups (the former Integrated Marketing group and the Communications group) under one roof, was months in the making," White said. "Nikki's work proved pivotal. She seamlessly balanced the important tasks of bringing together a departmental committee to organize our move, handled all of the planning and logistics that included the hiring of a private moving company to move all of our furniture and computer equipment, served as the main contact with campus IT, and helped drive a collaborative process that ensured that all voices and needs from the many members of MarCom were met before, during and in the days after."

White added: "Our move demonstrated what all of us in MarCom already knew about Nikki: that she is, without question, a key cog in our group's success."

Peterson is a graduate of the University with a bachelor of science degree in Geography, with a focus on weather. She was the 2010 Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering Vernon E. Scheid Award winner, was a 2010 College of Science Westfall Scholar, and from 2009-2010 was a McNair Scholar. She received her master's degree from the University of Alabama with a full graduate fellowship in American Studies, focusing on weather and society.

"I am a weather nerd," she said, "and my favorite cloud formation here is, of course, the lenticular formation and in Tuscaloosa (Alabama, where the University of Alabama is located) I saw the incredible mammatus pattern, which is my favorite there."

She said her dual duties between MarCom and the institution's Chief Diversity Officer have helped her experience the growth of the University in distinct ways: "I shift from working in a department of over 20 people to an office of two; I work in an office in Clark Administration and head across Virginia Street to work in an office in the Continuing Education Building; and I help the two departments recruit in ways that may seem to have different scope, but work in synergy-one that works on the big picture and one that focuses on the pieces of that picture. At the end of the day, I feel satisfied with my work and I am proud to be part of both teams."

She added that it is the "collection of personalities" of the people she works with that she enjoys most.

"We've got everything from the excitable analyst and innovative intellectual to the pensive protector and every creative, cooperative, sensitive, and genius type of wonderful human being in between," she said. "We can be ourselves while feeling confident that every viewpoint matters. Because of that, our collective talent is dazzling."