Nikki Richardson

Age: 22

Home Town: Silver Lake, Kansas

Education: University of Kansas B.A. in Political Science; B.A. in Global and International Studies

Specific Field Interests: Human Rights; Women and Gender Violence; Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minority Political and Social Rights

Placement: People's Watch, Madurai

Area of Focus: Human Rights

Highlights: Nikki first experienced India after receiving a FLAS scholarship to attend an intensive two-month Hindi program in the country. From there, she received another full-ride for the academic year to study Hindi while conducting research on memory spaces of Indian geography connected to the Mahabharata and the country's post-colonial identity formation and development of its nuclear program. During this year, her time was mainly taken by the nonprofit she helped run that assisted in building a school in rural Nepal, centered around providing education as well as services such as water filters to each student every year. While finishing up her bachelor's degree, she interned for Shared Hope International, assisting in facilitating their national conference related to sex trafficking of minors in the United States. She then was able to return to school and receive an AmeriCorps position at the local domestic violence and human trafficking shelter where she worked with 15 to 20 clients a week on housing and employment and examined LGBTQ-related problems in shelter. In her senior year, she was invited to conduct research for two separate Department of State diplomacy labs, including proposing legislative changes to human trafficking policies in India, Bangladesh, and Thailand.