Hillary W. Archer

Directed outreach, engagement, and media strategy for a research institute with a $4B annual budget, serving as spokesperson, and delivering a 60-fold rise in proactively earned annual media impressions (656M in 2017 to 41B in 2024) through integrated narrative strategy and proactive pitching.

Led all media operations (including press materials development, media briefings, messaging, proactive pitching, and reactive rapid-response), handling about 400 annual inquiries (+30% during the pandemic), securing accurate top-tier coverage and positioning NHLBI as a timely source for discovery science.

Built the narrative infrastructure for RECOVER, the $1.7B Long COVID research initiative, aligning brand coherence across earned and owned channels, and executive communications.

Designed and executed a dissemination and impact campaign for the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL), advancing equity in COVID-19 research and care; a digital push garnered 52M+ impressions in publications that reach desired audiences, and 261K page visits in under three months through weekly optimization, clear audience identification, and partner engagement; strengthened trust in historically underserved communities, helping to deliver record minority research participation in COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Advised leadership on message discipline, reputation, risk, and crisis communications (e.g., clinical trial closures, pandemic issues); instituted proactive issues management and risk-forecasting protocols.

Restructured and led a nine-person branch, managing a $2M/year communications support contract end-to-end, including PR firm oversight, and serving as final editorial authority, determining news value, reviewing/editing all news products (press releases, social media, newsletters, videos, and infographics).

Owned enterprise social media strategy across Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, applying AI-driven social listening (Meltwater, Sprout) to track sentiment and optimize content, increasing LinkedIn followers by 20% in two years and engagement by 30% in 2024.

Forged national media partnerships and multimedia campaigns with Woman’s Day, BlackDoctor.org, Univision, and Radio One to reach and engage historically underserved audiences.

Directed communications strategy and organizational storytelling for President Obama’s bioethics advisory panel, serving as spokesperson, and shaping national discourse at the intersection of science, technology, public health, and ethics with clear narratives on complex, policy-sensitive issues, such as synthetic biology.

Co-authored an article for the Hastings Center Report underscoring the importance of extending impact through education and highlighting the translation of the Commission’s work into curricula.

Led messaging and media strategy for high-profile issues, including the Commission’s public reckoning with unethical 1940s U.S. STD research in Guatemala, resulting in 250+ original news articles across 15 languages in 40+ countries, with wire stories posted on more than 280K web pages.

Established and managed the Commission’s digital brand and owned-media cadence, overhauling the website, launching a blog, and growing social channels to extend reach and sustain engagement, e.g., design and execution of the dissemination and impact campaign for the Ethics and Ebola report, for which coordinated briefings and media outreach generated 700+ social posts reaching 3.5M+ users.

Aligned messaging with senior communications officials across HHS agencies and the White House, exercising sound political judgment to ensure coherence on policy-sensitive topics and fostering trusted relationships.

Led communications strategy and press operations for a 12-county, five-market congressional district, setting narrative direction and message discipline across earned, digital, and constituent channels.

Served as on-the-record spokesperson and managed all media inquiries; launched a weekly local radio interview series to expand reach and public engagement across the district.

Built the office’s owned-media stack, including email newsletter, social channels, and a redesigned website, earning #2 ranking for usability and content quality among all House websites.