SoM Communications team
Communications in the School of Medicine
The School of Medicine Dean's Office Communications Team handles leadership and administrative messaging and develops and shares school news, especially centered in the academic missions, with school faculty, learners, staff and alumni as audiences. Departmental staff members support communications in the SoM departments, centers and institutes. All team up with OHSU Strategic Communications, Marketing, Digital Engagement and Government Relations teams to tell the story of the school and OHSU internally and externally.
Director of Communications and Senior Advisor to the Dean, OHSU School of Medicine
Erin provides strategic communications guidance to Dean David Jacoby and his executive leadership team. She also oversees the School of Medicine Dean's Office Communications Team, which produces the InsideSoM e-newsletter, Bridges Alumni Magazine, Medicine Matters alumni e-newsletter and the School of Medicine internal and external websites. Erin assists with major school and Dean's Office events, helps support departmental communicators, and liaisons with OHSU Strategic Communications, including Media Relations and related central teams.
Erin, who has a bachelor's degree in political science from Carleton College, was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and a Pulitzer Finalist in National reporting during her 17 years as a reporter for The Oregonian. She then spent eight years as a communications manager for Portland Public Schools and joined OHSU in 2016 in her current role.
Senior Communications Specialist, OHSU School of Medicine
Rachel is responsible for alumni and faculty/research communications. She plans, edits and produces the school’s twice yearly alumni print magazine, Bridges, with a circulation of 18,000, and produces the alumni e-newsletter, Medicine Matters, with a circulation of 9,000. On a weekly basis, she writes and publishes content for and about the school’s research enterprise, graduate students and faculty. She manages and executes special projects including a 2019 student recruiting video, “Discover your Ph.D.”
Communications Specialist
Karen works on the School of Medicine communications team, contributing to the weekly e-newsletter Inside SoM. She also provides website stewardship, contributes to the SoM social media presence, produces the monthly SoM accolades feature Scientia Medica Continuet, and writes stories and profiles that highlight the amazing work students, faculty and staff in the School are engaged in. Her main beat assignments are faculty development, faculty affairs, faculty stewardship, and graduate studies.
After graduating from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a degree in Journalism, she moved to the Pacific Northwest in search of life off-grid in the back country of the Olympic Peninsula. Eventually making her way to Portland, she earned a master's degree in public health from Portland State University and for ten years worked as a public health educator for the Environmental Public Health Division at the State of Oregon. She joined OHSU in January of 2020.