“I Live Openly and Authentically:” Statistician Aims to Break Barriers for LGBTQ+ Community

Photo By Neil Mabini | Nicole Chik of Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division stands in the inner circle at the center's Norco, Calif. campus. Chik, who says she represents the LGBTQ+ community by living an open and authentic life, serves as a statistician at the warfare center.  

CORONA, CA, UNITED STATES

06.01.2023

Story by Brianna Alexander 

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division

Nicole Chik, Acquisition and Readiness Assessment Department statistician at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division, is assertive in her support for the LGBTQ+ community and uses her story to help fight discrimination.

“People tend to fear and hate the things they don’t know about or understand,” Chik said. “I live openly and authentically, because I feel love and knowledge are powerful.”

In 2015, Chik received a bachelor’s degree in statistics before obtaining a master’s degree in statistical computing and data mining at the University of Central Florida. During her master’s program, she was awarded the SMART Scholarship-for-Service through the Department of Defense, and upon her 2018 graduation, she started working as an intern for the Weapons Assessment Branch at Corona Division, her scholarship-sponsoring facility.

Not long after beginning her internship, she and her wife realized that California was the perfect state for Chik to pursue her career.

“I felt honored to be granted the SMART scholarship opportunity and to be working at Corona,” she said. “My contract was for two years, but I ended up loving it so much that my wife and I became permanent Californians.”

Although Chik has been confident in her sexuality for most of her life, she has occasionally felt uncomfortable expressing it due fear of not being accepted, she said.

“I've always been proud, but I never knew who I was safe around,” she said. “There were times I experienced people having sort of a lingering ignorance that made me not feel fully accepted.”
Once starting at Corona, she realized her worry of being judged for her sexuality by strangers was replaced with feelings of comfort.

“I remember coming to Corona to work for the Department of Defense and wondering if the people I would be surrounded by would be accepting of me being a lesbian,” she said. “However, I've found nothing but love and support here.”

Over the last four years, Chik has helped the Navy develop more efficient ways for extracting, cleaning, preparing, and validating its data sets. Her valuable expertise has saved time and, as a result, money.

“When I first started, there was a lot of stuff that was done manually, which required a significant amount of hours,” she said. “It was very meticulous, but I've saved the Navy over 100 days’ worth of labor hours annually, partially through coding.”

For Chik, success doesn’t just come from her accomplishments on the job. While she describes her marriage as being “not so different” compared to any other, she does feel that some of her experiences are unique and challenging.

She and her wife decided to conceive using a procedure called reciprocal in vitro fertilization, where one of the woman uses her egg and the other carries the baby, allowing both parents to play an intimate role in the baby’s biological development.

“It was more difficult than what I think a lot of couples experience,” Chik said. “It feels like a cliché, but having a child was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.”

Just like children, Chik said every relationship is different in some way, but in order to break negative stereotypes, she feels it is good to remind people that her relationship is still relatable to others.

“My wife and I also fight over hogging the covers and what temperature to set the thermostat,” she said. “We share a lot of the same dreams, fears and goals that other couples face. It’s important for society to normalize and demystify the LGBTQ+ community and our relationships.”

By being true to herself, she said she feels she can continue shining a light and breaking down barriers that she and others in the LGBTQ+ community have experienced.

“I’m hoping that when people can see their relationships reflected in mine, they can instead recognize the similarities we all share, begin to break down unfounded biases, and focus on spreading love,” she said.

• Date Taken: 06.01.2023
• Date Posted: 06.06.2023 12:32
• Story ID: 446000
• Location: CORONA, CA, US