The NICI Planet Finding Campaign at Gemini South Beth Biller, IfA, U. Hawaii With over 300 extrasolar planets currently known, the state of extrasolar planet science has moved from detection to characterization. Direct imaging of extrasolar planets is a particularly attractive technique for planet characterization since it provides actual photons (and thus color data and eventually spectroscopy) from a detected planet. The Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) is a novel high-contrast AO imager for the 8.1 m Gemini South telescope. NICI combines a number of techniques to attenuate starlight and suppress superspeckles: 1) coronagraphic imaging, 2) dual channel imaging for Spectral Differential Imaging (SDI) and 3) operation in a fixed Cassegrain rotator mode for Angular Differential Imaging (ADI). While all of these techniques have been used individually in large planet-finding surveys, this is the first time ADI and SDI will be used with a coronagraph in a large survey. The NICI planet finding campaign is a dedicated 500 hour survey to directly detect extrasolar gian planets. Begun in December 2008, we have currently observed over 100 targets, with plans to observe ~300 total. Here I discuss the current status of the NICI campaing as well as campaign science design and data analysis efforts.