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Dawn Skeete-Walker Named Associate Vice President of Communications and Marketing at SUNY Downstate

Jan 9, 2018

Brooklyn, NY— Dawn Skeete-Walker has joined SUNY Downstate Medical Center as associate vice president of communications and marketing, where she will be responsible for managing the communications/public relations and marketing efforts for both the academic and hospital sides of the institution. She brings expertise in the areas of government, nonprofit, and higher education to her new role. 

The announcement was made by Wayne J. Riley, MD, MPH, MBA, MACP, president of SUNY Downstate, who added, “I am very pleased that Dawn Skeete-Walker is now heading our communications and marketing initiatives. She brings a great breadth of experience to this position, as well as a thorough familiarity with Brooklyn and the people we serve.”

Most recently, she served as assistant vice president of communications and marketing at The City University of New York's Kingsborough Community College, where she handled crisis management, served as the College's spokesperson, and directed a comprehensive communications and public relations agenda including advertising and brand management.

Before joining Kingsborough, Dawn managed and directed special projects and media activities for The City University of New York's Office of University Relations. Working with any number of CUNY's 24 campuses, she managed public relations activities and special marketing/advertising campaigns.

Previously, she served as assistant vice president of communications and external relations for Medgar Evers College, where she built a strategic communications and media outreach program for the College. She concurrently served as executive director of the Medgar Evers Educational Foundation, with success leading advancement efforts to increase alumni, corporation, individual, and foundation giving. 

Dawn served as a deputy press secretary to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, where she managed portfolios for two deputy mayors focused on K-12 and higher education, youth and community development, public housing, and health and human services.

A SUNY graduate of Old Westbury, Dawn has served as a mayoral appointee to the NYC Department of Education Panel for Education Policy and as the ex-officio member of the board at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. She is a founding member of Women’s City Network, an organization focused on mentoring and engaging more women to enter careers in public service. She also serves as a trustee of the New York Foundation and, in 2017, became a member of the board of the College & Community Fellowship, an organization working with women returning from incarceration to enroll them in college. Most recently, she was appointed to the board of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson, Mississippi, which works to preserve the legacy of the slain civil rights leader and his widow.

 

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About SUNY Downstate Medical Center

SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.

SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.