Naikena Mutulili

Attended Cardiff University and graduated in 2022, having held a Beacon Scholarship for four years.  After graduating, Naikena, from Kenya, joined the Cardiff University Students’ Union Business to Business and Customer Service Graduate Scheme. She has also worked towards becoming a certified data analyst. 

Naikena graduated with a BSc in Neuroscience, achieving a 2.1 overall. During her time at Cardiff, she engaged fully with all aspects of her course and study, and was active in many study sessions, brain-mapping seminars and academic skills development workshops. She used lots of the skills gathered here in a TEDx talk she gave, ‘The 3 Minds of Creativity’.

She enjoyed the many extra-curricular activities on offer in Cardiff, and over her time there was part of Cool Runnings run club, trained for a half-marathon for RAG and completed regular 15km runs/walks. She also got involved in many other social and cultural activities, playing the piano at different events and organising sports events (basketball, badminton and hiking), as well as movie and online games nights.

Naikena has always been interested in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and was a member of the Student Race Equality Steering Group whilst at Cardiff, in addition to setting up a fortnightly educational segment on the RaceLink Collective Movement social media page. She supported other students by writing articles about smart spending, accommodation practices and wellbeing and mental health in a student newsletter and a university Instagram page. A great communicator, she also gave regular cohort feedback and improvement ideas to the university as academic rep. Finally, through her course she became interested in neurodegenerative diseases, and fundraised with the university for Alzheimer’s research.