Meet your Duke Communicators Network steering committee! Please feel free to contact any of us with your feedback or suggestions for how to make the network better.
Kristen Brown is the associate vice president for University Communications and is proud to be part of the talented team of people who tell Duke’s story to the world. A Los Angeles native, Kristen is fluent in earthquakes, the Rose Parade, and summers that are hot and dry. Before coming to Duke in 2015 she held communications and marketing positions at Caltech, Nestlé, and Warner Bros. and never owned more than one umbrella.
Ryan Craig joined Duke Athletics in March of 2011 and serves as the executive director of digital strategy. In his role, Craig leads a team that is responsible for editorial, creative and strategic decisions regarding the department’s mobile apps, social media platforms and official website, GoDuke.com. In addition, he spearheads the department’s initiatives involving digital graphics, email marketing and analytics.
Before arriving at Duke, Craig worked at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C., for seven years, serving as a news production assistant, producer, photographer, reporter, radio host and sports web editor.
A native of Setauket, N.Y., Craig graduated from Duke in 2005 with degrees in history and psychology. He currently resides in Durham, N.C. with his wife, Blair, and two children, Austen and Landon.
Kyle Fox is the director of creative services housed within UCAE, which is housed within Student Affairs. His team offers graphic design, photography, video, and audio production services to the Duke community. In his early life, he was a graphic design student who switched majors to focus on working with kids, only to later take a position that heavily focused on graphic design. Kyle holds a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees from just down the road at NC State; none of them focus on design, photo, or video, but here we are. Outside of work Kyle enjoys eating BBQ, building treehouses with his partner, and illustrating spooky (but educational) books for his two kids. He may also play D&D occasionally but would like to gauge your reaction before fully admitting that fact.
Paul Grantham oversees the Office of Communication Services and is responsible for developing communication strategies to support administrative efforts across Duke, from human resources and finance to emergency management and sustainability.
Before coming to Duke in 2001, Paul worked in corporate communications with Wachovia Bank and as a reporter and assistant editor for the Kernersville News. Previous jobs not listed on his resume include bartender, painter, bookstore clerk and tobacco farmhand.
One of the few, but proud, North Carolina natives in the Triangle, Paul stayed in-state for his college education, earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Guilford College and a master’s in English and Afro-American Literature from North Carolina A & T State University.
Sonja Likness is the director of social media and content strategy in Duke University Communications. She is honored to head up the smart and savvy team in charge of the institutional social media channels as well as the student editors who run the @DukeStudents-branded channels. When she’s not working, Sonja enjoys posting on her personal social media accounts (including her cat’s Instagram), learning how to maintain her cute midcentury ranch home in Durham, and pursuing her MA in digital communications from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Andrea Martin is the director of communications for the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health in the Duke University School of Medicine. For five years she has managed all communications and marketing efforts for the department. Prior to joining Duke, Andrea worked as a visual journalist at three daily newspapers. She received her BA in journalism and mass communication, with a concentration in visual communication and graphic design, from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2002, and is currently pursuing a MA in digital communication from UNC-Chapel Hill. Andrea lives in Alamance County with her husband, two young sons, and two elderly dogs.
Leanora Minai is executive director of communications for the Office of Communication Services and editor for the employee print publication Working@Duke and Working@Duke on Duke Today. Prior to joining Duke, Leanora was a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times, in Florida. Leanora is always looking for a good story that can make a difference and effect positive change. She received a certificate in documentary arts from Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies after producing a short film about mothers in Durham who support each other through grief after losing a child to murder. Leanora is currently pursuing a master’s degree in liberal studies at Duke. She lives in the great city of Durham with her wife, Heather, and their mischievous silver Labrador, Vinny. You may spot them walking around downtown Durham on weekends.
Jeannine Sato is director of communications at Duke Office of Durham and Community Affairs. She started her career as a broadcast news reporter and transitioned to public relations and marketing communications. She originally came to Duke to help launch the Durham Connects newborn nurse home visiting program. Prior to DCA she was communications director at Duke’s Office of Information Technology. Jeannine holds a BA in broadcast journalism from Buffalo State College and a master’s degree in Liberal Studies from Duke University. In her spare time Jeannine is actively turning her urban backyard into a mini-farm. So far, the “farm” includes her husband, two children, two cats, and five chickens. (Are goats allowed in Durham?)
As the assistant vice president for strategic communications & planning at University Development, Tracey Temne serves as the chief marketing and communications officer for development activities at Duke. In her role she develops, implements, and oversees marketing and communications plans to encourage philanthropic support for Duke University. She also provides strategic planning and communications support for University Development leadership, including the vice and associate president.
Previously, Tracey was the Director of Marketing at the University of Maryland College Park, where she managed communications and marketing for alumni relations and development. During her tenure at UMD, she helped establish and oversee a development communications unit for the campus, launched the university’s first crowdfunding platform, created and executed marketing plans for the annual fund and the alumni association, helped develop the marketing platform for a multi-year fundraising campaign, and more.
Her background includes nearly 20 years of marketing, communications and event planning experience for numerous non-profit and higher education institutions including Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, William J. Clinton Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and National Public Radio.
She received her BA and MA in journalism from the University of Maryland College Park and her MBA from University of Maryland University College.
Aaron Welborn is the director of communications for the Duke University Libraries, where he has had the enviable task of promoting one of the best academic library systems in the country since 2010. Prior to coming to Duke, Aaron worked for the library system at Washington University in St. Louis. He’s not only into libraries, however. If you get him started, he can go on ad nauseum about the history of drive-in movie theaters and bird dog competitions, two topics on which he penned authoritative entries for the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. (Look it up!) Aaron holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Birmingham-Southern College and a master’s in creative writing from the University of Alabama. He enjoys reading, travel, cooking, old buildings, and anything related to history. Aaron is married to Braden Welborn, also a Duke Communicator, who heads up communications for the Duke Energy Initiative. They live in Chapel Hill with their two kids.
John Zhu has overseen communications at The Graduate School since coming to Duke in 2014. Before that, he spent seven years as the assistant director of communications at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. In his previous professional life, he was a newspaper designer/copy editor, mostly in the sports department of The Herald-Sun in Durham. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Hussman School of Media and Journalism at UNC. When not in the office, he’s busy wrangling his 6-year-old, serving as pillow to two black cats, teaching an online viz comm course, helping his wife belatedly discover the wondrous world of Skyrim, and producing podcasts for the very selective (read: small) audience of people who enjoy listening to classic Chinese literature being retold in English.