Chegg is a leading student-first online learning platform and a public edtech company. I work to support the company's core values by sharing Chegg's products and services, which support students from college and throughout their career journey. My role consists of proactive outreach to journalists, responding to sensitive issues, crafting communications plans and strategies, executive and product communications, and supporting earnings reporting.

I was hired to develop, design, and teach Crisis & Issues Management, a graduate-level course at Baylor University. Fusing best practices, scholarly research, and my on-the-job experience, I provide opportunities for students to practice crisis communications responses, hone their analytical and judgment skills, and learn before they find themselves in the hot seat tasked with responding to a crisis.

In this role, I managed reputation risk, mitigated issues, and shared the impactful work of World Vision U.S., an organization, dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.I developed communications plans, playbooks, and briefing books, responded to issues and crises while working cross-functionally, and advised leadership on responding to reputation risks and issues.

In this role, I successfully advanced strategic communications projects across the institution and was a university spokesperson. Most recently, I lent my expertise to the organization’s COVID-19 response. My main focus was implementing various communication tactics and strategies (communications plans, internal communications, and executive messaging) to engage students and employees during a time of upheaval and uncertainty. I worked cross-functionally to help Baylor reach its goal of two semesters of on-campus instruction during the pandemic.

As one of the university spokespersons, I assisted heavily with crisis communications and media training of key personnel and university leaders during a time of extreme media and regulator scrutiny. Also, I successfully launched the university's first safety campaign, which resulted in news coverage and positive feedback from external institutions as well as coordinated two change management presentations for more than 300+ attendees. During this time, I significantly increased our social media engagement and assisted with media relations.

In this role, I proactively propelled the brand to a national stage by earning major media placements on TV and in print (ABC News, NPR, National Geographic, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Nature) on science and education research. Using targeted pitches, press releases, and high-quality digital media, I secured earned media worth thousands of dollars in advertising value.

I taught the "Writing for Media Markets" course in the Journalism, Public Relations and New Media department for two semesters. It was exciting to work with students and have robust discussions about media trends and their future aspirations. I am a consummate teacher and a life-long learner.

"Be on-scene and camera-ready in 30 minutes." That was my charge when I worked as a PIO and spokesperson responding to law enforcement incidents such as car chases, barricaded persons, shootings, and more. It was my job to convey the facts of an incident to the media on-scene relying on my skills as a former journalist. In addition, I produced the city's award-winning newsletter and wrote opinion pieces on behalf of the mayor. One of my proudest accomplishments was implementing the city's website redesign from conception to completion.This role allowed me to use my skills as a former journalist and work closely with media.