Nicholas Elleman is a senior business information systems major and also the 2021 College of Informatics commencement speaker. Nicholas has been incredibly successful inside the College of Informatics and has done so while being a Division I tennis player and completing highly esteemed internships.

Nicholas has been committed to growing within the college and has been a computer science research and development assistant, a project coordinator as an IT intern, an audit and compliance intern at VNDLY Inc. and most recently president of the College of Informatics Ambassadors. He also won an award for his paper, “A Digital Platform for Improving Accessibility in Physical User Interfaces,” in 2020. Nicholas' hard work and dedication were recognized when he won the 2020-2021 Outstanding Service Award for the Business Information Systems Department.

“I never thought I would end up at NKU but now here I am graduating as the COI commencement speaker. It’s been a really exciting journey,” he says.

Being the commencement speaker may come with a lot of excitement and honor, but it comes with great responsibility as well.

“I’ve been able to work with so many people on perfecting my speech and I’ve been offered so much support through the process,” Nicholas says.

“The faculty and staff in the College of Informatics made a lot of uncomfortable things seem attainable and I’d encourage incoming students to do things that make them uncomfortable because that is where growth happens,” he adds.