Embracing Variation in Medical Illustration

Ni-ka Ford is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator and founder of Enlight Visuals, a medical and scientific visualization studio. Combining her artistic abilities with research in science and medicine, she creates compelling visuals for both expert and lay audiences. An Atlanta native, Ni-ka graduated from Georgia Southern University with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts. She then attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, graduating with a Master of Science in Biomedical Visualization in 2017. As a medical illustrator, Ni-ka has worked with clinicians, physicians, and researchers to create science graphics, medical and surgical illustrations, 3D models, and patient educational materials. She specializes in creating visual aids for teaching medical students, illustrations for journal publications, and visual abstracts for research grants. She worked as an academic medical illustrator for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for five years before founding Enlight Visuals.

Ni-ka is committed to contributing to the need for inclusive and diverse representation within medical and healthcare materials. She is an active professional member of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) and has served as Chair of the Diversity Committee for the past two years. She is also a fellow of the AMI Diversity Fellowship in collaboration with Johnson and Johnson’s Our Race to Health Equity Initiative (ORTHE).

Website:  http://www.enlightvisuals.com/