About My Practice
Twenty years of experience in communications, public affairs, and public relations in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.
My practice combines these varied perspectives into one unified vision for clients in health care, the arts, and civil society: integrating markets and missions, forging new collaborations for sustainable economic growth, sound environmental stewardship, and promotion of human health and creativity.
Before starting my own practice, I was a vice president at Ruder Finn Health Care, where I worked with such clients as Novartis Oncology, Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research, and Johnson & Johnson. I also managed Ruder Finn’s partnership with Nature Publishing Group to provide content for biotechnology features presenting the latest laboratory technology to highly influential scientific audiences worldwide.
I came to Ruder Finn from the Public Affairs office at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. As senior editor and manager of new media, I was responsible for the editorial content of the center’s consumer and professional websites and wrote regularly about advances in cancer research and cancer care on the Web and in print. At Sloan-Kettering, I kept in close daily contact with many of the world’s leading cancer researchers and clinicians, as well as with patients, donors, National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute and other key stakeholders.
Prior to working at Sloan-Kettering, I was an associate editor at the leading online and print medical reference, Scientific American Medicine (now ACP Medicine, a publication of the American College of Physicians). I also have worked for United Hospital Fund of New York, Merck & Co., Inc.; Kallir, Philips, Ross; and W.W. Norton & Company.
I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1980 with a B.A. in comparative literature. I was working as a manuscript editor at W.W. Norton when I took a freelance assignment from Merck, editing a newsletter highlighting the company’s scientific advances for its international employees. The first issue focused on early findings that the veterinary product ivermectin had therapeutic potential for patients with onchocerciasis, a historic scourge of sub-Saharan Africa. That initial experience, and continuing involvement Merck as the ivermectin story unfolded into one of pharma’s humanitarian classics, led me to choose socially progressive communications as my career.
I offer strategic counsel (especially for startups and organizations reconciling novel challenges and opportunities with mission); comprehensive writing and editorial services (including but not limited to press materials, key messages, white papers, web and online copy); and website development (particularly for launches and redesigns focused on improving usability and visibility).