Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has announced the appointment of Avice Meehan to Vice President of Communications and Chief Communications Officer. In this new expanded role, Meehan will streamline communications across the Center and lead both Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Public Affairs and Marketing endeavors.
Meehan, who served as Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Vice President of Public Affairs from 1994 to 2002, returns after ten years as Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). There she directed comprehensive communications activities to promote the national medical research organization’s mission to advance biomedical research and science education through a variety of initiatives, including a suite of highly regarded digital and print publications, media outreach, websites, and social media.
“We are delighted to have recruited Avice back to Memorial Sloan Kettering,” said Craig B. Thompson, MD, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “Her broad experience and knowledge of communications, especially in the scientific and medical milieu, will help shape the delivery of our message going forward.”
In an effort to improve and expand its communications efforts, Memorial Sloan Kettering recently consolidated its communications initiatives under a single Vice President of Communications and Chief Communications Officer. In this role, Meehan will be responsible for communicating Memorial Sloan Kettering’s scientific and medical accomplishments to multiple external and internal audiences, whether in press, in advertising, on MSKCC.org, or via internal communications.
“I am so thrilled to be returning to Memorial Sloan Kettering,” said Meehan. “I look forward to the challenges ahead, and the opportunity to work with the extremely talented staff and leadership during this time of outstanding clinical and scientific progress at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.”
Prior to her work at HHMI and Memorial Sloan Kettering, Meehan worked as a reporter and editor for newspapers in New York and New England for more than a decade. In 1990, she joined Lowell P. Weicker Jr.’s groundbreaking campaign for governor of Connecticut. She served as communications director and then as press secretary for the Weicker Administration from 1991 to 1994.