STUDENT
SPOTLIGHT
Anika Coleman Brings Creativity and Leadership to Gulf South VECTOR
Anika Coleman, a senior Graphic Design major in Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, has become a driving force behind Gulf South VECTOR’s social media and visual communications.
She works under the guidance of Dr. Rachael Paine, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Graphic Design BFA program at Virginia Tech, who oversees Gulf South VECTOR’s graphic design and visual presence as one of the project’s funded partners. As a Research & Design Assistant, Anika coordinates content development among project partners, creates graphic assets, drafts captions, manages social media channels, and schedules content across platforms. In this role, Anika helps guide and supervise other student designers working on the project—all while completing her senior-year coursework.
A true powerhouse, Anika draws on experience in agency, nonprofit, brand identity, and packaging design to strengthen and shape Gulf South VECTOR’s social media presence. Her previous internships include positions with Tarte Cosmetics, Cardwell Beach Marketing Agency, Triumph NIL, and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She has also led student design initiatives through VTHacks and DesignUP.
Working with Gulf South VECTOR has allowed Anika to move beyond the classroom and apply her skills for a real client with a public-service mission. Through the experience, she has strengthened her communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and project management abilities while learning to adapt creative work to a client’s goals and audience. She has also gained a new understanding of social media strategy, public health communication, vector-borne diseases, and the role education and outreach play in disease prevention.
The project has helped clarify Anika’s plans after graduation. She discovered that she enjoys leading teams, organizing project scopes, keeping work on track, and bringing people and ideas together around a shared purpose. It also reinforced her interest in social media strategy and her desire to build a career through meaningful work for an organization whose mission she values.
Anika is one of more than two dozen students who have gained real-world experience through Vector Outreach—putting classroom skills into practice while exploring and solidifying their future career paths.
