A nationally recognized, award-winning medical writer, editor and communications strategist, Melanie Fridl Ross, MSJ, ELS, is the chief communications officer for UF Health, the University of Florida’s academic health center. Melanie oversees marketing, internal and external communications, crisis and issues management, strategic communications and public affairs, and creative services for UF Health across its health campuses in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Central Florida and Jupiter, supporting six health colleges, 10 research centers and institutes, 10 hospitals, and more than a hundred outpatient faculty practices, along with a number of affiliate relationships. She is a member of the adjunct faculty at the UF College of Journalism and Communications, where she has taught a news reporting lab since 2004. She also serves as senior producer of the consumer health series Health in a Heartbeat and Animal Airwaves, which both air on public radio affiliates across the country. Melanie joined UF from The Tampa Tribune, where she was a reporter. She is a board-certified editor in the life sciences and is the current president of the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences. She is also a fellow and past president of the American Medical Writers Association and a current member of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Institutional Advancement, the National Association of Science Writers, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. Melanie earned her bachelor’s degree in American culture and a master’s degree in journalism with concentrations in legal reporting and administration from Northwestern University.